


A Tale of Two Bunkers

by sandpaperblues



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Angels, Badass Ichabod, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Ichabod Crane/Abbie Mills, F/M, Gen, Immortality, Jealous Castiel, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Men of Letters Bunker, Missing Persons, Multi, Mystery, Portals, Spells & Enchantments, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-10 19:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 31,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3301610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandpaperblues/pseuds/sandpaperblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam and Dean were out working a case, Castiel vanished from the bunker without a trace. The brothers looked everywhere, followed up every possibility, but Cas was simply gone. </p><p>Meanwhile, in Sleepy Hollow, Abbie and Ichabod were approached by a man who claimed to be an angel. He arrived with bad news: Ichabod Crane was meant to die in 1781. When he did not, something in Heaven was thrown out of whack. In order to keep existence as they know it from unraveling, Ichabod had to die.</p><p>Now, as Dean struggles for a lead in finding Cas, he calls in every hunter he knows. But only two show up: Abbie and Jenny Mills, led to the Winchesters by a map given to them by this mysterious man who claimed to be an angel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Abbie slammed shut the trunk on the car. “We’re all set.”

From the passenger seat, Jenny watched her climb in beside her. “You don’t have to sound so mopey about it,” she scoffed with a grin.

Abbie rolled her eyes, “I’ll be happier when we’re out of here.”

“Aw, you know you’ll miss this place.”

As the engine roared to life, Abbie cast a last glance back to the cabin before pulling away. “What I miss ain’t here anymore,” she said softly.

As the car pulled away from the cabin, the woods thinned and then fell away. The tires hit asphalt and soon Sleepy Hollow too passed on as if something from a dream.

They drove onwards without a destination, guided only by the curves in the highway and a moth-eaten map.

* * *

They already passed Pittsburgh and Cincinnati when signs were popping up for Louisville. “Are we seriously in Kentucky already?” Jenny raised an eyebrow.

“’Already?’ We’ve been on the road for eleven hours.”

“It doesn’t seem like that long.”

“Well, you ain’t been driving. You been _asleep_.”

“If you wanted me to take over, you should’ve woke me.”

Abbie smirked to herself and tightened her hand on the wheel. She didn’t want to fight with Jenny. Not now, not anymore. Now when she was the only one she had left.

* * *

When they found a cheap roadside motel on the outskirts of town, the manager behind the desk handed over the key with an indelicate side-eye. “You sure you want two queens? We don’t judge around here.”

Jenny ripped the key from his hand. “Thanks for the open-mindedness, buddy, but we’re sisters.”

* * *

The room was dank even with its kitschy bowling pin room divider. “Who the hell are they kidding?” snickered Jenny as Abbie dropped their bags to the floor, “What do they think, that the Dude is gonna stay here?” As Abbie didn’t even crack a grin, Jenny added, “What? Nothing? You do know who the Dude is—”

“Yes, I have seen _The Big Lebowski_!” Abbie sighed, “Jenny, please.”

“I’m just trying to lighten the mood.” Swinging about a bag of junk food they picked up at Gas N’ Sip, Jenny noticed the rickety mini-fridge topped with a tiny microwave. “Wow, I guess they really stretched the meaning of ‘kitchenette,’ huh?”

As Abbie kicked off her boots and dropped backwards onto one of the queens, Jenny tossed a bag of Red Vines. They hit Abbie’s stomach and she coughed. “Come on,” Jenny laughed, “Let’s watch crappy cable TV.”

“I really want to sleep. I want to get an early start tomorrow.”

As her sister kicked the covers over herself, Jenny sighed. “Okay,” she murmured, willing herself to understand.

She remembered so strongly what it felt like to lose someone, but she knew Abbie must feel it so much deeper. This was no ordinary person she had lost. That bond between them was something like fantasy to Jenny; she could not fathom it. She had no idea what her sister was experiencing right now, but she could only hope to help her through it as best she could.

* * *

As Jenny was awoken the next morning, the sun had not yet arisen and Abbie was already showered and dressed. “Come on,” she commanded her sister, “We’re losing daylight. We gotta make Kansas by two o’clock.”

“Kansas?” she moaned in the pillow, “You didn’t say we were going to Kansas. I thought we were heading west.”

“Yeah, well,” Abbie yanked the blankets from off of Jenny, “Kansas _is_ west.”

“What the hell is in Kansas?!”

And then Jenny saw the first smile to cross her sister’s lips in days: “Hunters.”


	2. Chapter 2

The scene was typical. Blood splattered across the walls. A body lying—eyes open, throat torn out—on a hardwood floor.

“So,” Sam glanced up at his brother, “What do you think? Vamp? Werewolf?”

“What’ve we got to go on?” Dean shrugged, “Somebody got killed. Bad. That’s our only clue. A whole lotta things kill people. There’s nothing here to make us think it’s our kinda thing. For all we know it’s just a whack job with a machete.”

Sam pursed his lips, exasperated. “Come on, man, can’t you try a little?”

“Try _what_ , Sammy? We’re grasping at straws here. Let the police handle this one.” With that, he turned on his heels, loosened his tie, and strolled out of the room.

With a wink to the cop standing at the front door, Dean said blithely, “Not the FBI’s problem, Officer. You do your thing.” As he sauntered down the steps and across the drive, ducking under the yellow tape, he glanced back to make sure Sam was following.

In silence, they climbed back into the Impala and made their way back to the bunker.

* * *

Dean said little else on the drive back. As per usual, he cranked the stereo and sang along. Badly. It was the classic sign, Sam knew: Dean was _repressing_. Usually, he blasted AC/DC, but lately it had turned to Joy Division and Sam was starting to worry. Soon it would the The Smiths and then he wouldn’t know what to do.

They stopped for a quick lunch at Biggerson’s, but still Dean said nothing besides the casual observation of, “Oh, new menus!”

“Yeah,” Sam mused, “Must be a big moment for you.”

Dean held back a snappy comeback but produced a fake smile for the waitress when she arrived. “Cheeseburger and fries.”

“How’d I guess?” she muttered, then turned to Sam, “Chef salad again for you too?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, “Sure.”

She didn’t even bother to write it down as she added, “Where’s your third wheel? Getting his trench coat dry-cleaned?”

Sam gulped, “He’s… uh.…”

But Dean snapped, “Not here,” as he dropped the menu to the table with a loud thud.

* * *

It was early afternoon as they arrived back at the bunker. The tires hit the gravel road, a familiar sight appeared up ahead: an old Ranchero, with weathered sides. “Dude,” said Sam, “Is that… Garth?”

“Not just.”

As they hit the crest of the hill, more vehicles came into view: a small car, bright yellow, and several others.

“Whoa,” breathed Sam, “What’s going on? Are we gonna be ambushed or something? Should we get outta here? How can they all know about the bunker?”

“Because I told them, smart ass. I called Garth, Charlie, Jody, and a bunch of other hunters, too. This is an all hands on deck situation.”

“But… why, Dean? This is our _home_. This is the only place we’ve got that’s safe anywhere!”

As he turned off the ignition, Dean turned to his brother. His voice fell and he said thickly, “I gotta find him, Sammy. I gotta do whatever I can.”

But as they approached the parked cars, no one was there waiting for them. The entire gravel stretch was empty save for the perfectly formed rows of vehicles.

“They must be inside,” Sam started, then caught himself, “Wait. How’d they get in? Have you been giving out keys?”

Dean’s eyes widened. “Something’s wrong. I told them all to wait out here. I was real clear, too: two o’clock. On the dot.”

“So,” Sam raised an eyebrow, “You gathered all our eggs in one basket and left them out here in the open?”

“They’re hunters, Sammy! They can take care of themselves! And we were gonna be here! Who the hell do we know that shows up early?”

Sam glanced at his watch. “It’s two fifteen.”

“Okay, well, who the hell do we know that shows up on time?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, the gravel beyond the Impala growled under a new set of tires. They both whirled around to see another car pulling up. The afternoon sun cast a glare across the windshield; as both doors opened, Sam and Dean drew their guns.

The weapons in their hands matched those of the two women who stepped from the car. The shorter of the two shifted her gun between the brothers before lowering it with a smile: “Sorry we’re late.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

As Abbie cautiously slid her gun back into her holster, Dean refused to lower his. “Who the hell are you?”

“Such a warm greeting,” Jenny rolled her eyes, “I thought people were supposed to be friendly down South.”

“Yeah, well, Kansas ain’t the South. This here’s the Midwest. Plus, I get a little testy when people I don’t know show up at a place _no one_ is supposed to know about.”

Jenny waved her gun at the parked cars, “Certainly looks like no one knows about it to me.”

“Look, Sister,” muttered Dean, “You are really getting on my nerves—”

Abbie cut in: “The angel told me.”

Immediately, Dean dropped his arms. “ _What did you say_?”

* * *

“Ugh,” Jenny wiped the holy water from her face, “Was that really necessary?”

As he slammed the trunk shut, Sam gave a half-smile, “Sorry. Gotta be safe.”

“Can we go inside now?” Abbie pointed to the door set into the hillside, “That looks like an underground bunker. We got one too. You guys got an archives as well?”

“Yes, it is. And yes, we do,” replied Dean, “But no. We’re not going inside it.”

“Why not?”

“Are you familiar with Admiral Ackbar?”

As Abbie frowned in confusion, Jenny laughed. When her sister turned her frown on her, Jenny explained: “He means it’s a trap.”

With a laugh, Dean stuck out his lips and did his best impression: “ _It’s a trap!_ ” The sisters shared a look. “No? Nothing? Anyway, there’s something in the bunker that’s waiting for us, something that got our friends—” he gestured to the parked cars, “And for all we know it could be the Wicked Witch back from Oz.” As Jenny laughed again, Dean cut her off, “I am _not_ joking about that. Totally _not_ a joke. That witch is _real_ , man. Anyway, my brother and I were about to figure out our next move when you two showed up.”

Grinning, Jenny glanced back at Sam. “You two are brothers?”

Sam blushed as Dean carried on, “Yes, of course, don’t go getting any—”

“It’s just that, well, we’re sisters.”

“Oh,” a giggle caught in Dean’s throat, “Oh my.”

“Wait,” Sam cut in, “You don’t know who we are? You don’t know our names?”

“The angel said _brothers_ ,” Abbie confirmed solemnly, “But I wasn’t given names. So should we know who you are? Are you famous or something?”

“We’re the Winchesters,” Dean beamed with pride.

“Never heard of you.”

“There are books about us.”

Abbie pursed her lips, “There are books about vampires that sparkle. Should that impress me too?”

As Dean’s smile faded Sam asked, “If you didn’t know our names, how did you find us?”

“I was given a map,” answered Abbie, “And information about hunters.”

“What?” smirked Dean, “Like a treasure map? ‘Here be hunters’?”

“I guess. It just showed plotted coordinates. If you drew a line joining them all, like a connect-the-dots, they drew a circle around one place: here. And from these notes scrawled on the back of it, ‘hunting’ sounded a helluva lot like what we do.”

“Oh yeah? Well, what _do_ you do?”

Abbie shrugged, “We kill demons, monsters—”

“Ghosts?”

“Have done.”

“Wendigos?”

“Just the one.”

“Witches?”

“Wanted to. Got a gorgon once, too.”

Dean glanced back at Sam, “A gorgon?”

“Like Medusa,” he supplied, “Greek mythology.”

Abbie forced a smile, “I’ve even been to purgatory.”

“Honey, I got the t-shirt,” Dean laughed, “Do you know anyone come back from the dead?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, putting her hands on her hips, “I suppose you could call it that. You ever met a horseman of the apocalypse?”

“Try _all four_!” Dean sneered, “Death and I are practically drinking buddies!”

“That’s funny, because the Horseman of Death that I know… he doesn’t even have a head!”

“Okay, fine, so you _hunt things_ ,” Dean cocked his head, “But do you _save people_?”

“Ain’t that the point?”

This made him grin. Pointing quickly to Jenny, he added, “And you would say it’s a _family business_?”

“Well,” Abbie rolled her eyes, “It’s a long story, I guess. Our _mother_ —”

“Your mother…? Dead?”

“Yup.”

“Holy crap!” Dean turned back to his brother, “They’re the girl _us-_ es!”


	4. Chapter 4

In a Starbucks parking lot, Sam perched himself on the hood of the Impala, laptop open on his knees. Dean sauntered out, eating a stale breakfast burrito, right from the wrapper. “God, these things are terrible!”

“This _wifi_ is terrible!” Sam muttered, lifting the laptop higher in vain for a better connection.

“Anything yet?” he garbled with a full mouth, “I’m not storming into that bunker until I know who we’re dealing with.”

“Well, they _do_ know Cas—”

“No,” snapped Dean, “They said _the angel._ That could be anyone.”

“Hang on,” Sam tilted the laptop toward the heavens while _Search the Web_ loaded, “Ah, yes!” As his eyes scanned the search, Sam continued, “So get this, Jenny was in a mental ward—”

Dean choked on the breakfast burrito, “Oh that’s friggin’ awesome. What else?”

“Uh, I dunno? She’s hot?”

“I meant _what else_ is on the internet! Is Abbie a _murderous clown_ or something?”

“Says here she’s a cop.”

“Oh great. A cop. It gets better. And they ordered freakin’ lattes!” he shook his head, “A _cop_! _Lattes_! Awesome. Just awesome.”

“It’s not that bad, Dean. Jody’s a cop. So’s Donna! Besides,” Sam grit his teeth, “They seem like our best bet yet for finding Cas. Didn’t you say this was an all hands on deck situation?”

* * *

Through the glass window, Jenny and Abbie watched the brothers as they waited for their lattes. “Is this crazy?” sighed Abbie, “Are _they_ crazy?”

“Worst case scenario?” started Jenny, “At least they’re hot.” Out in the parking lot, Dean waved a half-eaten breakfast burrito while ranting on soundlessly, bits of scrambled egg spitting from between his lips. “At least the tall one is. I call dibs.”

“It’s okay,” Abbie breathed, “I ain’t looking.”

* * *

“All right,” Dean commanded, waving his hand like a conductor, “Everyone in the car. Anyone who spills in Baby is immediately and forever banished. You—” he pointed to Abbie, “The little one. You’re in the front with me.”

“But—!” Sam protested, “I always get shot gun—”

“You know the rules, Sammy. No unattended unknowns in the back of Baby whilst holding open beverages. You keep an eye on her. Besides, the officer here and I are gonna have a little chat about this angel.”

Rolling her eyes, Jenny climbed into the backseat, Sam settling in awkwardly beside her. “Sorry about my brother,” he murmured, red-faced, “He’s a little… well, he lost someone recently.”

Jenny smiled somberly, “Another thing him and my sister have in common, I guess.”

* * *

As the Impala swung back onto the road, Dean looked over at Abbie. “So. Give me the story. About the angel. Is he the one who gave you the map?”

“Yeah, and he told us to find these two brothers…. Wait,” Abbie pointed to the radio. “Are you listening to The Smiths?”

From the backseat, Sam whimpered, “Oh no.”

“What?” Dean retorted, “Are you telling me you don’t like The Smiths? Everyone likes The Smiths.”

“Didn’t peg you for a _Smiths fan_ , that’s all.” As her eyes drifted up and down him, she surmised with a smirk, “But I’m guessing it’s a recent revelation, huh? Probably been a fan all along, but just kept it to yourself. If you catch my drift.”

“Catch your… _what_? What _drift_ are you… _drifting_? What?! Shut up!” cheeks burning, Dean turned his stare back to the road, “Don’t change the subject.”

“Is it something to do with the angel?”

His eyes narrowed, but he refused to look at her. “Tell me what you know about the angel.”

“He took somebody who meant a lot to me.”

“ _Took_? What, like killed?”

“As good as, I suppose. You see, this man was meant to die a long time ago. But he didn’t. And it threw heaven out of whack. So the angel had to take him to stop heaven from breaking open.”

At this, Dean’s eyes met hers again. “That can’t be right, though.”

“Why not?”

“Angels don’t take people to heaven.”

“Yeah, they do!” she laughed, “Of course they do.”

“No,” he insisted, “They don’t. They really, _really_ don’t. Trust me. I know angels. I know heaven.”

“What?” Abbie looked to him in horror, “No. That can’t be right! He said he was an angel and that he was taking Ichabod to heaven!”

“Okay, three problems with that sentence,” replied Dean, “First: angels don’t take people to heaven. But _Reapers_ do. Second: how do you know this dude actually took… _Ichabod_ … to heaven? How do you know he didn’t take him to, I dunno, _hell_ , or something? Third: _Ichabod_? Seriously, _Ichabod_? What kind of name is Ichabod?”


	5. Chapter 5

“Dean, we gotta look this thing up,” Sam nearly shouted.

“Calm down, man. You don’t have to yell. You’re in the back seat, not Timbuktu.”

“Sorry, I just—”

“You’re just excited, that’s all! Like a little puppy,” teased Dean, as he added quietly to Abbie, “He had a dog once. Poor sap.”

As Sam became aware of Jenny’s eyes on him, he mumbled: “It was an Australian Shepherd.”

“Yeah, Sam,” drawled Dean bitterly, “Totally adorable.”

“Yeah, yeah, isn’t that great,” Abbie cut in, “Can we focus back on the problem here?”

“Okay, okay,” Dean rolled his eyes, “Don’t get your panties in a twist—”

Abbie glared: “Don’t make me bring up _The Smiths_!”

“Fine! Okay, so we can’t go into the bunker because something will kill us if we do, something that’s got our friends hostage. But we can’t figure out what that something might be until we can do more of Sam’s favourite thing.”

Blushing, Sam explained again to Jenny: “He means research.”

“Which—” Dean carried on, “We need to get into the bunker in order to!”

“Wait,” said Sam, “Didn’t you guys say you have a bunker and archives?”

“Yeah, all the way back up in Sleepy Hollow,” answered Jenny, “It’s a whole day away. If something’s got your friends, we don’t have that kinda time.”

Abbie turned around in the front seat. “How sure are you that something’s in the bunker with your friends? I mean, what’ve you got to go on? The fact that their cars were there but they weren’t? Here’s a thought,” she announced, “Did either of you think of, I dunno, _calling them_?”

* * *

“Hey, Sam!” Jody voice came through the phone, bright and cheery, “Wish I could say it’s good to hear from you, but every time I do, something bad’s happened.”

“Uh,” Sam frowned, “You mean something _hasn’t_?”

“ _You_ called _me_ , Sam.”

* * *

 

“Aw, crap! What happened? You guys never call me unless it’s bad. Please tell me you’ve just forgot your Gmail password or something.”

“Nice to talk to you too, Charlie.”

* * *

 

“ _Hi, you’ve reached Garth and Bess! We’re out howling at the moon! Just kidding! The next full moon ain’t for—_ ” the line clicked and the voicemail ended, “Yello?”

“Garth?”

“Aw, shucks! What’d I do to deserve a call from you fellas?!”

“Just, uh, wanted to make sure you’re… _alive_.”

“That’s so sweet!”

“So, uh, weird question, I know, but did your car get stolen, by chance?”

“My old Ranchero? Nope! It’s parked out front. I’m looking at it right now!”

* * *

 

“That’s it,” Sam dropped the phone back in his pocket, “That’s everyone you said you talked to, Dean. None of them remember talking to you. None of them ever drove up to the bunker to meet you.”

“But that’s ridiculous!” snapped Dean, “They were there! We saw their cars! We _all_ saw their cars!” Abbie and Jenny shared a concerned glance as Dean slammed his fist onto the steering wheel. “Awesome! That’s just friggin’ awesome! Who the hell did I talk to then?!”

“I don’t know, Dean,” answered Sam, “But one thing’s certain: we are definitely not going back into that bunker. Not until we’ve sorted this out.”


	6. Chapter 6

“So you actually _live_ like this?” Jenny glanced around the motel room.

“Not as much as we used to,” explained Sam, “Not since we got the bunker. But that’s the good thing about motels, I guess. They all kinda look the same. They just feel like different variations of _home_ , you know?”

She dropped her duffel bag on the ground. “Now that you mention it, the one we stayed in last night looked remarkably similar.” Pointing to the room divider, she added, “Except that one in Louisville had bowling pins rather than… are those _cows_?”

Sam could only shrug, as if to say _Cincinnati, huh?!_

* * *

As Dean slammed shut the trunk of the Impala, he cast a glance back over to Abbie, “Don’t think I’m not getting the rest of this angel story from you. And whatever happened with… uh, _Ichabod_?”

“I’ll tell you when you can stop saying his name without giggling.”

“Hee hee! Were you and, uh, Ichabod a… a _thing_?”

Abbie’s teeth set on edge and she narrowed her eyes at him. She snapped, as a threat: “ _The Smiths_.”

Dean’s face turned. “Fine. No Ichabod.” As they reached the door, he insisted, “Now tell me the story with the angel.”

“Not here.”

“What do you mean _not here_? Where else is there?”

Abbie sighed. “Jenny’s in there.”

“Are you telling me your sister doesn’t even know the whole story? Are you keeping secrets from her? Why the hell would you do that?”

“Are you telling me that you’ve never kept anything from your brother? Never?”

“Uh, yeah, well,” Dean stuttered, “It’s complicated. Sam’s… well, Sam’s had… _issues_ , I guess? He’s… well, he’s a train wreck.”

“Yeah,” Abbie hand fell on the doorknob, “It’s been complicated with Jenny, too.”

Dean thought of Sam’s internet search. “So I’ve heard.”

* * *

The tinny sound from the television set bounced around the room as Jenny flopped back against the pillows, bottle of cheap beer empty in her hand. She cast a glance over to Sam, who was onto his third bottle.

Emerging from the bathroom, Dean, freshly changed, rolled up his sleeves. “I’ve definitely not missed watching Tom Hanks movies on shitty cable. Do you guys have HBO in your bunker?”

“No,” replied Abbie, hovering over the table. Spread out before her were the weapons cache from the trunk of the Impala. Inspecting blades and knives, silver bullets and all every kind of gun she remembered from basic training, she whistled. “Wow. Do you know how many weapons charges I could bring up against you right now? How is it you’ve never been stopped by the cops?”

“We have. I just get by with my natural charm. And these?” he pulled a tin box up onto the table and cracked it open.

As Abbie started rifling through their assortment of fake IDs, she could only shake her head with a laugh, “You would definitely be going away for a _loooong_ time!”

“Luckily we know people in law enforcement,” he grinned, turning to his brother, “Now, are you two gonna be all right in here if Short Round and I go grab a drink?”

“Um,” stuttered Sam, “Yeah, okay, I guess….”

“Sounds great!” piped Jenny, “See you two later!”

As Dean ushered her out the door, Abbie scoffed, “ _Short Round_? I’m pretty sure that’s offensive.”


	7. Chapter 7

“So,” Dean dropped the pint of beer in front of Abbie, “Spill.”

Knocking back a mouthful of beer, she peered around the inside of the bar: low lights, wooden seats, and a pile of assholes at the booth adjacent. “Ugh, what a place.”

“It serves beer. That’s all I care.”

“Do you think Sam and Jenny will be okay?”

“Are you asking me if you think your sister is okay left with my brother?” he asked and she only shrugged, taking another sip of beer, “I think the better question is: is my brother okay left with your sister?” 

* * *

Dean polished off the third beer. “So, what is it about Jenny? Why doesn’t she know?”

“Well,” Abbie thought for a moment before she replied, “Jenny’s tough. I know that. But I also….” She sighed, “I also worry, you know?”

“Boy, do I.”

“I… I just get tired of trying to explain myself to her. She’s about the only person I’ve got left that I trust. But… I dunno. Sometimes she just… complicates things, you know? Some things you’ve gotta do on your own. ”

“Yeah,” he folded his hands together, “Yeah, I know.”

“It’s not _another person_ , per se, it’s that she’s my sister. My _little_ sister. I was always supposed to protect her, and I’ve let her down before. I’ve let her down plenty. This… this was—Ichabod—was something different. I mean, she’s my sister so she’s the most important thing in the world to me, but he was… well….”

“Something different?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want her to see how much it wrecks me to see him gone like that, gone in a way that I can’t really answer. I told her the demon got him, just like it got Irving. I didn’t want to say it was an angel. I didn’t want to say that Ichabod _chose_ to go. I didn’t want to… I couldn’t tell her that he did it to save me. Because I knew—I _knew—_ that if the roles were reversed I would’ve done the same for him. In a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even have thought about it. And I know that I can’t say the same for Jenny, because we’ve been through that. When we were kids, I let her down badly. I let them take her to the hospital because I couldn’t even tell the truth about demons and monsters. I let them all think she was crazy. If she knows that Ichabod and I would _die_ for each other, I just… I didn’t think she’d understand, you know?”

“Yeah,” Dean repeated, “I getcha, sister. I do. And I got plenty to say to that, but I’m gonna need another beer first.”

With a quick smile, Abbie downed her beer and slid from the booth, “It’s my round.”

She came back, four beers in hand. “I thought this might get to be a long conversation.” 

* * *

“I can’t believe I’ve told you all that. Sam would crap his pants if I opened up like this,” Dean carried on, “I’m not normally one for talking about my feelings and junk, but—”

“But you totally are?”

He only gulped back his beer in response.

Abbie took a deep breath, “So what happened with Castiel?”

“I told you: Sam and I were out in Oregon working a case and Cas stayed at home—the bunker, I mean—and our IDs got questioned by a local cop, so when we gave her our ‘Supervisor’s’ card, Cas never answered the phone. I tried him again and again, but no answer. So we dropped the case—nothing too serious, just a rogue werewolf, we think; we called another hunter to pick it up—and came home. And he was just gone. Just… _gone_. No note, nothing. That was a month ago. We tried every lead since, but nothing. Nada.”

“Yeah,” Abbie smirked, “You told me this a _while_ ago. On the way back from Starbucks, remember? I meant what happened with _you two_?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know damned well what I mean.” As he gave her a frown, she raised her eyebrows, “The Smiths, Dean. _The Smiths_.”


	8. Chapter 8

Sleepy Hollow appeared in the distance just as the sun was tipping over into early evening.

Dean drove on with Abbie in the passenger seat beside him, staring absent-mindedly out the window. In the back, both of their siblings were out cold, sleeping off what had been a long night of Abbie-and-Dean-didn’t-want-to-know-what. All they knew was that when they staggered back in from the bar, the chain was up on the front door keeping them out. Dean’s hollers were met with a flurry of “Wait! Wait! Wait!”

Dean was not impressed.

Neither was Abbie.

“Nice town,” muttered Dean as they drove over the bridge.

Abbie shrugged, “It was home.”

“Past tense much?” he snickered, “And _I’m_ passive-aggressive?!”

Abbie rolled her eyes with a smirk, “I never said you were _passive_ anything.”

* * *

Sam and Jenny dropped stacks of books onto a rickety wooden table. “A hunter we knew had a cabin like this once. Not as nice as this, but… well…a cabin.”

"Well," grinned Jenny, "A certain witch no one likes to talk about lived here for a while. It was a bitch to clean up after we got rid of her. She left hex-bags and dirty dishes everywhere. The shower drain was  _so_ clogged with red hair—”

“Red hair? Wait, her name wasn’t Rowena—?”

“Nope. Don’t worry. Besides, she’s long gone."

A few beers later, as they began leafing through the lore, Sam flipped open a book that might as well have been titled _Sleepy Hollow: A History_. “Wow,” he muttered, “So, like _every_ founding father did something here, hey?”

“Pretty much,” Jenny replied but her attention was elsewhere. Before her spread out a giant map book with pages of old, brittle paper and coarsely printed pictures. Gingerly, she flipped the pages over and over until she found the one she was looking for. “Ah ha!” she exclaimed, pulling something out of her pocket. With a frown, Sam watched as she unfolded a musty, moth-eaten scrap of parchment and laid it over top the picture open on the book. “I knew it.”

“Knew what? What’s going on?”

“This,” she pointed to the unfolded parchment, “This is the map Abbie used to find you guys. And this—” she pointed to the map in the book beneath, “This is where it was copied from.”

“Copied?”

“Yup,” nodded Jenny, the smile on her face vanishing, “So, Abbie, Ichabod, and someone who _said_ he was an angel went into the woods—”

“Are you telling a joke?”

“I wish,” her voice grew graver, “They were going into the woods to summon a demon, Abbie said. Just a demon. I even asked if they needed help, but she said they had it. Just a demon. Not a problem.”

“But where did the angel come from?”

“I didn’t know he was an angel then. I thought he was just the guy who sold his soul. They were gone an hour, that’s all.”

“That’s not long enough to summon a demon and kill him. Even if you work fast, they usually talk a lot, so....”

Her eyes flitted back up to him and she looked solemn, “I don’t know that they did. I just know my sister was the only one who came back. And she came back with this.”

As she turned the parchment map around, Sam devoured it with his eyes. He could see the sketched outline of North America, with the western shore fading and wavering out into the Pacific. This map was drawn before the west coast has been properly charted. A string of numbers, in loopy black scrawl, the same ink as the map sketches. The coordinates that circled the bunker. No other words appeared on it, save for the note about hunters, which was clearly written recently in ballpoint pen.

“Abbie said the demon put up a fight, took down Ichabod and the other guy. I wanted to go back and find the bodies, bury them maybe, but she said it was too dangerous. Besides, she said, there wasn’t anything left. I should have questioned her, I know. But, it’s _Abbie_. My sister. I didn’t have any reason not to believe her. Besides, the look on her face, how destroyed she was…. It was obvious Ichabod was really gone.”

Sam fingered the map, “Does she know you have this?”

“I slipped it from her jacket pocket when she was going through your weapons cache. Before they went to the bar,” she answered, “I figured it’ll be easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. I gotta believe that if she lied to me, it was for a good reason.”

“I understand,” Sam nodded, “I really do.” With a conciliatory smile, he looked back to the parchment. “Now, this is weird. No one was really using parchment anymore when any map of North America would have been made. Everyone had paper by then.”

“Yeah,” Jenny nodded, “I thought that too. I think the parchment is sheepskin. So most likely European. My first thought was maybe it was Spanish. You know, really early, like 1400s. Or maybe even Viking, but they didn’t really have sheep, did they?” Her eyes brightened again, “That’s when I actually started looking at the details of the map. It looked familiar somehow. This book is where I had seen it before. Look, it’s identical! Like it’s been traced. It even has just the coordinates to your bunker here, in exactly the same writing!” As she pointed to the page spread across the table, she read out: “1781.” Beaming, she looked up to Sam as if that proved everything.

“1781,” he drawled slowly, “That… means…?”

“That was the year that Ichabod…” she winced, “Oh god, how do I describe it? Got put into carbon freeze?”

“What?” Sam raised an eyebrow, “Like Han Solo?”

"Essentially," she shrugged, "But that can't be a coincidence, right? That it's the same year?"

"It could be. But what does that mean? Like was this Ichabod's book or something?"

"No," she answered darkly, "But I think it was Katrina's."

 


	9. Chapter 9

The first thing Dean asked when they entered the bunker was: “Do you guys have a dungeon? Because we have a dungeon.”

“I guess so. We’ve got a place to chain up bad guys where they can’t get out,” Abbie let her eyes drift around the dark room, “Does that count as a dungeon? It’s made of stone and looks dungeon-y, I guess. Or do we need an iron maiden or something?”

Dean’s eyes widened. “An iron maiden would be so sweet.”

Abbie only pressed her lips together, taking on the idea. “Nah,” she decided, “We don’t need one of those. Not when there’s Jenny around.”

With Sam and Jenny back at the cabin working their way through whatever they could find in the lore about people like Ichabod who were caught ‘out of time,’ Abbie looked around the near-empty shelves of the bunker for anything else that might help, while Dean set about ‘Searching the Web.’

As her fingers trailed over the left-over spines, Abbie knew there wasn’t much left here. The cabin became so much more than a cabin in the last year... before Ichabod was gone. The cabin became the perfect blend of home and work. It had the coziness of her forgotten apartment but the privacy of the bunker. Eventually, it just became home: _their_ home.

Books and artifacts slowly migrated over from the bunker as they’d do their research curled up together on the sofa or in bed with their morning coffee. It felt like the most natural thing in the world. Only now, Abbie couldn't shake the feeling it was all some wonderful, fantastic dream. Would it be easier just to believe that? How else could she cope?

Dean watched her eyes trail off the end of the bookshelf and out into space. For just a moment, he felt a sharp pang in his chest. He knew exactly what she was feeling; he felt it too. He hated feeling it. So he cleared his throat. “I hate research too.”

With a jolt, her hand fell from the bookshelf and she turned to him, forcing a smile, “Crane was always better at it than I was. Not a _lot_ better, mind you. Mostly, he got by on the benefit on having _lived_ whatever it was we needed to know.”

“Like a Founding Fathers Forrest Gump?”

Abbie let out a laugh, “Exactly like that.”

* * *

As Dean turned the computer around, the screen lit up with an old picture of Jimmy Novak. Abbie only shook her head. “That’s not him.” She gave Dean a pointed smirk, “He’s cute though.”

“As a friggin’ button,” Dean blushed, lingering on the picture for a moment before closing the window. "I don’t know if I’m annoyed it wasn’t him or relieved. It'd open a whole can of worms, but at least we'd get answers."

"You couldn't exactly find that comforting, though?"

"Yeah, I know. But sometimes I wonder if it's any worse than all the weird crap my imagination has come up with."

Abbie leaned her head down on the table and let out a sigh. "I thought Crane was gonna be in Heaven. What could be better than that? Now I know whatever it is, it's a hell of a lot worse."

Not knowing what to say to that, Dean lapsed back into silence and plugged in a few more searches. As a few more windows opened, he spun it back to her. “How about this dude?”

The screen showed security camera footage of a homeless man, famous a while ago for apparently healing the disabled and curing the sick. “Of _course_ that guy was an angel!” she laughed, “Makes sense now. But no. That wasn’t _the_ angel.”

“You don’t know how good it is to hear you say that. That guy’s a giant assbutt."

Abbie frowned, "Assbutt?"

"Never mind," Dean looked back to the laptop, "Now how about this one?”

He proceeded to pull up every angel he could think of whose likeness appeared somewhere online, in some news story. Each photo was met with a “Nope,” from Abbie. Then he tried listing names, even as she assured him the angel only gave his name as ‘Don.’

"'Don?' Are you kidding me? _Don_?"

Abbie shrugged, "I assumed it was short for something like... I dunno... Donatello."

"The ninja turtle? Come _on_ , sister."

When out of angel options, Dean dug into his pocket to pull out his phone. “Now this is a long shot, because he would totally have told me. It’s our deal: we don’t gank him and he keeps hell under control and lets us know anything weird going on.”

“Who are you talking about? Lucifer?”

“Nah, Lucifer is long gone. I'm talking about the King of Hell.”

Abbie laughed, “You’ve got a peace treaty with the _King_... of _Hell_?!”

“Well, sister,” grinned Dean, “I guess you could say we’re old drinking buddies.”

“That’s impressive,” she smiled, “I mean, there’s always gonna be a hell, right? Better the devil you know, I suppose.”

“Something like that,” he turned his phone over to her. Spread across the screen was a photo of Dean wearing a cowboy hat, holding a beer, and grinning drunkenly with his arm around a guy in a black suit.

“Ha ha,” she laughed, “Does Castiel know about this—?” Immediately, she grabbed the phone to take a closer look. “Wait, that’s him!”

“That’s Don?!” Dean slammed his hand onto the table, “Damn it, Crowley!”

“No, that’s not Don! Not the angel,” she snapped, “That’s the demon Don made us summon! When we went out into the woods for Ichabod to… to die. We summoned him to help complete a spell or something. He was there when Don took Ichabod. That’s the demon who gave me the map and told me to find you!”


	10. Chapter 10

Sam hung up his phone and glanced up at Jenny. “They’re on their way.”

She looked nervous, playing with the cuffs of her sleeves as she did, even as she tried to appear nonchalant. “Did they find anything?”

“Not that he mentioned.” Dropping beside her on the couch, he put his hand on her knee in a gesture that he calculated oh-so-carefully to come off as  _comforting_ but still a little  _sexy_.

She put her hand on top of his. “Did they mention the map?”

“No.”

She squeezed his fingers. “Good. Maybe I can slip it back into her jacket before she notices.”

“Jen,” he started, “You need to tell her about the book of Katrina’s.”

“I know,” she snapped, pulling her hand away, “Should we order pizza or something for dinner?”

“Dean said they're stopping by the grocery store.”

Jenny forced a laugh, “They’re  _cooking_?”

“Yeah, I thought it was weird too.”

* * *

From the look on Dean’s face when they stepped inside the grocery store, Abbie smirked, “You have  _got_ to tell me you’ve been inside a Whole Foods before.”

“Why are the aisles so tiny? What kind of hipster hell is this?”

As she grabbed a basket, she added, “They have pie.”

* * *

Little remained in the cabin in the way of food. The last few weeks, Abbie stopped cooking and lived mostly off of take-out, like she had in the days before Ichabod. He was unused to contemporary restaurants and showed particular disdain for fast food, or, as he called it once “Speedy… ugh… snacks.”

She had loved the way he blushed when he realized his mistake.

Life together in the cabin began slowly: a routine that established itself before either of them had really realized it. It was hard to find places that delivered out this far without a nasty look from the driver. So they cooked together. It became such a simple pleasure of domestic life: attempting new recipes or experimenting with all the spices Ichabod had never tried.

“I hope you all like Italian,” Abbie declared, dropping the Whole Foods bags on the counter of the small kitchen.

Proudly, Dean beamed a grin as he turned to look at his brother. “We’re making lasagna!”

Jenny paced the living room, her voice trilling brightly, “So? Any leads in the bunker?”

“Nope,” her sister called from the kitchen as she dropped some meat into a skillet, “What about here?”

The meat sizzled and a broad smile burst onto Dean’s face.

“Uh,” Jenny’s eyes met Sam’s, “Not really.”

“I was thinking,” began Sam, his eyes still holding Jenny’s, “What about letting us take a look at that map the angel gave you?”

“That reminds me—” Dean stepped out from the kitchen - a wooden spoon in his hand - and caught the awkward look his brother was giving Jenny. He frowned in confusion, “Um. Okay. Anyway,” he gave Sam a pointed glare, “I ran all the angels we know of past Abbie and she said none of them were the angel who took Crane.”

“None of them? Not even Cas?”

“Cas was the first one we checked, obviously. I'm telling you, man, this is all kinds of messed up. I say tomorrow we head out into them woods and see what we can see.”

Stepping closer to his brother, Dean tilted his head towards Jenny and muttered under his breath, “Dude?  _Dude_.”

Sam only glared: “ _Dude_.”

“Hello?” Jenny rolled her eyes, “I’m right here.”

In the kitchen, a pot boiled over. This time, it was Abbie who snapped: “DUDE!”

Frantically, Dean skittered back in to help. When he was gone, Sam looked back to Jenny and mouthed: _Tell her._

In response, Jenny could only scowl. 


	11. Chapter 11

As Dean dropped the hot pan of lasagna onto the table, Abbie followed it up with a six-pack. She twisted the cap off the bottle and held it up: “To a fruitless first day.”

With a nervous glance to Jenny, Sam watched as his brother scooped out the lasagna with all the ceremony of a religious ritual. “Looks good, Dean.”

“Damned right, it does.”

“So, I was wondering,” Sam continued, “What’s the whole story with this angel? Jenny said you lied to her—OW!” Jenny kicked him under the table, but he carried on anyway, “She said you didn’t tell her he was an angel until after you came back from the woods.”

Abbie answered without skipping a beat, “It was going to be difficult— _dangerous_. It was going to be dangerous. And I didn’t want her there.” She turned to her sister, “You would have insisted on coming and you know it.”

“Only because it was a stupid idea, Abbie! Why the hell would you go into the woods with some guy who said he was an  _angel_ —”

“Because Crane trusted him!”

“Crane trusted  _Katrina_  too.”

Abbie eyes narrowed. “That was different. You know that. Besides, I had met an angel before. I knew they were real and I knew how to handle them.”

“You’ve met demons before too,” Jenny folded her arms, “And you expect me to believe that a demon got one over on Ichabod? Damn it, Abbie. I can’t even keep your story straight. A guy named Don of all things came to you and Ichabod—”

“He  _found_  us.”

“Oh!” Jenny laughed sarcastically, “Okay, he  _found_ you! And he told you he was an angel and he said that Ichabod  _had_  to die?”

Abbie's voice lowered, firm but chilling, “He said Ichabod was supposed to die in 1781. Him  _not dying_  messed everything up. It was against the divine order of things, he said.”

“But I thought you guys were witnesses? Wasn’t this all destiny or something?”

Dean glared at Jenny alongside Abbie, “Just because it’s written or whatever doesn’t mean it has to happen. Right, Sammy?”

“Uh, yeah, well,” Sam flustered at his brother’s invocation, “That doesn’t mean it’s easy to just flaunt destiny. There are consequences.” He not-so-subtly shuffled his chair an inch towards Jenny.

“I don’t care what you think about,” Abbie said, “Ichabod believed it and I believed him. He was willing to die for it. But the catch was, he had to die and go to heaven, so he couldn’t kill himself, and I couldn’t kill him—I just couldn’t—besides, Ichabod wouldn’t let me. He didn’t want the sin left on me, he said.”

“Why didn’t Don kill him then?” asked Jenny, “If it was  _so_ important and all.”

“Don said angels can’t kill humans. They’re not allowed. They’re too pure, he said. That’s why we had to summon a demon to do it.”

“Uh,” Dean dropped his fork, “That’s not true. Angels are assholes, sister. They’ll kill anyone who gets in their way. Not much different from demons, to be honest.”

Lowering her eyes, Abbie replied, “I think we’ve established that Don  _wasn’t_  an angel.”

“So that was it, then?” scoffed Jenny, “You just let the demon kill Ichabod?”

As Abbie lifted her eyes again, they were wet with tears, “Do  _not_  make me feel bad about this! I was there, but none of this was my choice! Do you not think I would have done whatever I could to make it different?! Ichabod was  _so_ insistent that it was true! I believed because I had to! I loved him, Jenny! Maybe that was weakness on my part, and don’t think I don’t blame myself every day for this already! I should have made sure, I know, but I trusted him and he believed Don!”

“Okay,” mumbled Jenny, “I’m sorry. Jeez, Abbie. I’m not  _blaming_  you. At least not for this. I’m blaming you for lying to me.”

Abbie only shook her head, “You’ll be so mad at me, Jen. That’s why I haven't told you.”

“What?” Jenny implored, “What else is there?”

“The demon didn’t really  _kill_ Ichabod, per se. At least not like how we know. It was a spell. It was a spell that opened this window, I guess: a portal to heaven. The spell sent not just Ichabod through that portal, but Don as well.”

“What happened to the demon? Did you kill him?”

“No,” Abbie’s voice broke, “I didn’t. He… he’s the one that gave me the map that led us to these two.”

Jenny gasped: “WHAT?”

Dean looked to Sam regretfully: “It was Crowley.”

“Crowley?!” Sam’s eyes widened, “Crowley is behind this?”

“I don’t think  _behind_ ,” answered Dean, “But definitely  _involved in_. We’ve just gotta find out if this has anything to do with Cas.”

As Jenny flopped back in the chair, she bit at her nails, considering her options. After a moment, she grit her teeth and began her confession: “I gotta tell you something too, Abb. I took the map the angel—I mean, the demon—gave you out of your pocket back at the motel.”

“You stole from me?!”

“You  _lied_  to me! But forget about that, my point is, Sam and I did find something in our research....”


	12. Chapter 12

“So what are you trying to tell me?” Abbie frowned, “That a map from the year Ichabod was supposed to die had coordinates circling the Men of Letters bunker in Kansas?”

“I dunno if it means the year he was supposed to die,” started Jenny, falling back in her chair with a sigh, “Or if was made when he went into his… I dunno… coma thing?”

“When he was buried alive, you mean?”

As Dean wrinkled his nose, Sam supplied under his breath, “Think carbon freeze.” Dean nodded in recognition and picked again at the cheese bits crusted on the edge of the empty lasagna pan.

Abbie pushed herself from the table. As she paced around the room in thought, arms folded over her chest, she looked the perfect balance of contemplation and decisiveness that let the others defer so easily to her lead. Her eyes darted back to the brothers, “That bunker couldn’t even have been there in 1781, could it?”

“The Men of Letters built it in the thirties,” answered Sam, “But there was a reason they built it in that spot. It’s the middle of the country. Like the dead centre – the geographical centre of the United States. Not counting Alaska and Hawaii, obviously.”

“What about the rest of North America? Canada and Mexico? Hell, what about the rest of the world?” Abbie rolled her eyes, “Besides, the United States as we know it now didn’t even exist in 1781. Kansas wasn’t even _America_ then.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Sam shrugged, “But there’s a marker in Lebanon, Kansas and everything. Of course, it’s about half a mile from the actual spot, because that’s private property— _our_ private property.”

Abbie arrived at the table where Jenny had spread out the map book. Bending over, her eyes scoured the old map and she recognized it so easily. Identical, it was, to the one Crowley gave her.  “How sure are you about the date of this map, Jenny?”

“One hundred percent.”

Abbie looked back to Sam, “So what was the reason the Men of Letters picked that spot?”

“I, uh,” stuttered Sam, “I dunno. It seemed cool, maybe?”

“And what’s underneath it?”

Sam’s lips peeled back in his _I have no friggin’ clue_ look. “Bedrock?”

Dean grimaced, “The town from the Flintstones?”

“I _mean_ ,” Abbie sighed, “Is there anything _beneath_ it? Or _above_ it? Or… _within_ it? The Men of Letters wouldn’t have just chosen it because it was _cool_.”

As Sam continued to frown, Dean’s face lit up with the realization, “You mean is like a… Hellmouth or something?” As all three of them stared back blankly, he was forced to explain with red cheeks, “A _Hellmouth_? Come on, guys. Have none of you ever seen Buffy? It was like the first thing I ever binged on Netflix. You can pick up a lot of hunting tips from that show. Anyway, the Hellmouth is the gateway to hell, essentially. And it’s right underneath Buffy’s high school. It sort of explains why all the crazy crap keeps happening in Sunnydale and why Giles had all these weird occult books in a friggin’ high school, and—”

“Okay, enough,” Abbie could not suppress a smirk, “But yeah, that’s basically what I meant. That there’s something about that exact spot that explains why there’s been some shifty stuff going on with the cars that appeared, or why Crowley sent Jenny and I there, or—”

Dean’s face turned solemn as he cut her off: “Or how Cas just disappeared from right out of the middle of the bunker.”

Her eyes met Dean’s and she nodded wistfully, “Or that.”

“Nothing springs to mind,” Sam cut in, agitated. The idea that all this time they lived atop something like that and not realize it did not sit well with him. “I mean, I haven’t seen anything in the lore that I can remember about a… a Hellmouth, or something. There have been other places, like the convent where Lucifer’s cage was, but I would think that the Men of Letters would have left _some_ information about it _somewhere_ if there was a good reason they built the bunker there.”

Jenny retorted, “Maybe they didn’t want anyone to know?”

Sam’s nostrils flared, “Are you suggesting they _suppressed_ information?”

“Come on, Sammy, don’t get defensive,” Dean tried to sound calm, “It’s not like we could really put that past the Men of Letters. They definitely didn’t leave us a warning sign that they had the friggin’ Wicked Witch of the West in there, did they? They didn’t tell us that _Oz_ existed!” As both Abbie and Jenny looked at Dean with incredulity, he was forced yet again to explain: “Yes, yes. Oz is real. But it’s not that big a deal; it’s just part of the fairy realm.”

This explanation didn’t help; their eyes only widened even more. They gawked in unison: “The fairy realm?!”

“Yes, yes!” Dean sighed, “There’s a fairy realm. It’s real. Get used to it. Demons, angel, witches, a guy from 1781 being put into carbon freeze and _this_ is where you draw the line on being surprised?!”


	13. Chapter 13

The more they talked about the bunker and the not-an-angel—and Crowley and Castiel—the more possibilities seemed to arise. Dean was beginning to wish they’d picked up more than the three cases of beer they already had in the cabin.

As the night wore on, the frustration gave way to delirium.

At some point, Jenny pulled out a deck of cards and started dealing them around the table. “I don’t get the point of a drinking game—” started Abbie.

“The point is to get drunk,” Dean finished.

“Exactly,” she grinned, holding up her beer, “We’re _already_ drinking.”

“The point is to _have fun_ ,” Jenny corrected, a round of cards already dealt.

“Then there are better drinking games than this,” Abbie declared.

Jenny raised an eyebrow, “What did you have in mind?”

* * *

Slurring, “Umm….” Dean rolled his eyes in thought, “Uh…. Never have I ever….” As he eyes landed on the sisters, an idea popped into his head, “I never worn makeup! Ha!”

As Jenny and Abbie took sips, Dean was aghast to see Sam sip as well. “Dude?”

Sam laughed, “You totally have too, man. Don’t lie.”

Dean’s eyes widened and he retorted, “Parallel dimensions or… angel-induced fantasy worlds don’t count!”

“Oooh!” Jenny cooed suggestively, “ _Angel-induced fantasy worlds_! That sounds like a helluva lot of fun! Ripe with possibilities!”

As she gave Dean a knowing look, his face turned bright red. Sam noticed, as always, and, as always, pretended that he didn’t.

Reluctantly, Dean lifted his beer to his lips and drank. As Abbie laughed, Dean looked to his brother, “Your go.”

Sam was grinning wildly. He already had one ready; he was prepared to get drunk and didn’t care who he took down with him. “Never have I ever… been in a mental institution!”

“Damn it, Sammy!” Dean snapped, drinking again.

As Jenny’s mouth dropped open in mock dismay, Sam shrugged, “Sorry! We looked you up!”

She took a swig of her beer and threw a pillow at him. “How can medical records be available online like that!”

“Well,” Sam caught the pillow, before taking his own swig, “They weren’t _available_ per se, but they were there!”

“Do they teach hacking at Stanford too?!” she laughed, “Okay, okay! My turn! I never… um… I never… Hm….”

As she thought, Dean wiped a dribble of beer from the bottom of his chin. “This game is crap, man! I drank like twice what you all have drank. And you know what I get from that? I’m a hell of a lot cooler than the rest of you. I’ve done so many awesome things. Stuff you could only dream about.”

“And yet you’re the only one of us who hasn’t joined the mile high club,” Abbie smirked.

“That’s because he’s afraid of flying,” Sam laughed, “Besides, Dean, I think you drinking twice as much of the rest of us probably balances things out a bit, eh? None of us can hold our liquor like you can.”

Something in the way Dean’s machismo faded under the booze gave Jenny an idea. It was a total lie and she would have to drink herself, but it would be worth it. “Okay, I got one. I’ll take one for the team. I never…” she had her beer poised and waiting at her chin, “… had sex with a guy!” She immediately drank as the mouths of the other three dropped open.

Abbie’s shock turned to laughter as she drank. “That takes me out.”

Sam tried as hard as he could, as drunk as he was, to keep a straight face when he looked at his brother. “Well, I certainly never.” He failed. The snickers began as he added quietly, “Dean? You?”

Dean’s face was red, but he kept himself contained. Beside him, Abbie solemnly murmured, “You don’t have to….”

“No, it’s okay,” Dean took a breath, “I might just be drunk enough. We can talk about… _The Smiths._ ”

Suddenly, Sam felt incredibly guilty. “No, no. It’s stupid.”

He realized how utterly silly it all was. He knew about Castiel. And Dean knew that he knew. And Sam knew that Dean knew that he knew. The only thing keeping up this whole charade was the fact that it had never been acknowledged openly between them. Somehow, Sam always suspected that was how it was going to go. The secret would go on for years until one day he walked in on the two of them in the shower and that would be that.

He had no way of knowing what form of denial allowed Dean to be so obviously in love with someone but simultaneously think it was a secret. But, when he thought about it, for even a second, he realized he knew exactly what form of denial it was: _fear_. That, at least, Sam could understand. Dean had spent his entire life wearing plaid shirts and leather jackets like a mask. There was so much that mask covered; falling in love with a man was just the tip of the ice berg.

He wondered, then, what form of denial allowed Dean to imagine for even a second that Cas could keep the secret. Everything had been so obvious from the start, from the looks they gave each other, to the way Dean would act so hard like he didn’t care.

All it took from Sam was an _I think I know what’s going on_ for Castiel to spill everything. He didn’t even get to finish his sentence.

Thus Sam knew, even though it had been impossible for him to share the information with Dean. He also knew that, for Castiel, at the time of his disappearance, not everything was okay with him and Dean.

“No, Sammy,” Dean downed his entire beer and set the bottle on the coffee table, “It’s not stupid. At least not Cas and I. Being… uh… _together_. If that’s what you were referring to. What _is_ stupid is the way we’ve not talking about it.” With a deep breath, Sam saw a small piece of the denial fade away, “Cas told you, didn’t he?”

Sam swallowed, “He did.”

“How much?”

“Pretty much everything.”

“ _Every_ thing?”

“Well, not, you know, the, uh… _private_ stuff.”

“Damn it, Cas,” muttered Dean, “I shoulda known. He folds like a cheap suit.”

“He was just…” Sam sighed, “… happy, Dean. He was giddy, even. He wanted to share it with someone.”

Dean had yet to look at Sam. He ran his finger around the rim of his beer bottle. “I’m sorry, Sam,” he said after a minute, “I shoulda told you.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Dean.” Sam took a deep breath, “But there’s something else, too. About Cas.”

Dean looked up at him. “What? What do you know?!”

“It’s probably just be a coincidence, really it is, but, well…” he winced.

“Spit it out, Sammy!”

“The morning before we left for that job in Oregon, while you were packing up the car, Cas and I were talking and he… uh… he was worried.”

“About what?”

“He was worried that you, oh god, how do I…” Sam rubbed his head, “ _weren’t sure_? About him and you, I mean. The fact that you never wanted to talk about it was rattling him.”

“What?” Dean’s face fell, “He never said anything.”

“Neither did you. I think that was the problem.”

“Oh god,” Dean flopped back in his chair, “Oh crap. You don’t think he left because of me, do you?”

“I don’t. That’s why I didn’t stress out about saying anything.”

“Dean,” Abbie spoke up, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder, “I don’t think Castiel would have just taken off without talking to you. From what you’ve told me about him, he doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who would do that.”

“Yeah,” Dean’s eyes leapt back and forth from Sam to Abbie and back again, “But what if something happened to him—what if he’s… _gone_ —and he died thinking that I don’t love him? How could I live with myself?”

“He knows, Dean,” Sam answered solemnly, “He knows. He must.”

“We gotta find him, Sam. We gotta find him.”


	14. Chapter 14

As she laid the parchment beside the open map book, Abbie compared the details in the images. Both maps used only black ink, with thin lines and hatching in lieu of shading. “I don’t think one of these is a copy of the other. I think these were both printed at the same time, by the same printer,” her finger ran over the edges of the image, “Did you see, Dean? There are identical spots where excess ink squished out from the edges of whatever kind of plate was used.”

“But if they were printed at the same time,” Dean gulped back his coffee, “Then why is one on parchment? That makes no sense. I thought you said parchment was dead and done by 1781.”

Abbie scratched at her head as the morning sunlight drifted through the windows. The two of them had been awake for about an hour, but Sam and Jenny still slept. The two of them took the bedroom that had been Abbie and Ichabod’s, but Abbie didn’t mind. She’d not slept in there as long as Ichabod had been gone.

The question ate away at her as she pushed herself up from the kitchen table and went to pour another cup of coffee. _Why would someone print the map on parchment_? Her head throbbed a little from the night before. She hated the fuzzy feeling of a hangover, and was jealous of how easily Dean seemed to be dealing with the after-effects of losing so badly at I Never. _Why would someone print the map on parchment_?

As she sauntered back into the living room, Dean had hunkered down over top of the maps. He lifted the parchment up in the air and held it before his eyes, moving it closer and then farther away, as if that would reveal anything.

Abbie laughed, “It’s not a Magic Eye.”

“I don’t know what else to do!”

Suddenly, a high-pitched giggle of Jenny’s came from behind the bedroom door.

Dean dropped the parchment. “Oh, for the love of…”

“I’ll tell you what,” Abbie stepped back into the kitchen, “I’m gonna chuck our coffee into travel mugs and we’re going for a walk. We can check out the spot in the woods where that portal was opened."

Dean was already grabbing his jacket.

* * *

 _Why would someone print the map on parchment_? As they made their way through the woods, Abbie kept running the question through her mind. But her eyes remained focused on the ground as she walked, her short strides going double the pace to keep up with Dean’s long gait.

“What’re we gonna do about these two?”

“These two what?” She asked thoughtlessly. _Why would someone print the map on parchment_?

“Our siblings! What did you think I meant?”

“I dunno. I’m sorry. My mind’s a little preoccupied. We’re pretty much here, by the way,” she stopped walking. “The place where Ichabod… well. But, anyway. What can we do about Jenny and Sam? I don't know, Dean. They’re adults. My instinct with Jenny is to always be wary of the guys she dates, but, well, Sam’s… different, I guess. Actually, _technically_ , I suppose he’s worse. Certainly more dangerous. But at least it’s not because he's a drug dealer or something.”

“Does Jenny normally date drug dealers?”

“Not _drug_ dealers, but… well, shady types.”

Dean smirked. “Sam dated a demon once, so I think he wins.”

“A demon? Please tell me he didn't know she was a demon?”

“Oh, he knew."

"I wished I knew this last night when we were playing that game!" 

"It gets worse. Speaking of drug dealers—”

“Wait!” Abbie cut him off.

Dean shrugged, “Ah, forget it any way, it’s a long story.”

“No,” Abbie broke into a grin, “I got it! _Why would someone print the map on parchment?_ To make it last!” The answer came so simply that Abbie knew it must be true. Her eyes widened at the realization, “Paper degrades easily—it’s a miracle the map book still survives—but parchment lasts a hell of a lot longer. Someone wanted this map to survive the centuries.”

“But why?” Dean curled around to face her, “Why would someone want the map to last so long? How would they know they were going to need it?”

“That's not the worst question. How would they have known what spot to circle? How would they have known Lebanon, Kansas would mean anything? The lower 48 states didn't exist yet! How would they have known the bunker would be there?”

Dean frowned, “Are you suggesting... time travel?”

“I know it’s possible. Witches—”

“Not just witches.”

As the words left Dean’s mouth something appeared in the woods just over his shoulder, almost as if summoned. Abbie leapt backwards. It appeared out of thin air.

Not a _­thing_ , she knew, but a _man_.

“Dean!” she shrieked, grabbing him by the arm, “Behind you!”

As Dean spun around, there—in the exact spot where the portal opened that took Ichabod away—was a man in a trench coat. To Abbie, he looked familiar, but to Dean, he looked like everything.

Castiel tilted his head gently to the side, and softly murmured: “Hello, Dean.”


	15. Chapter 15

“Dean,” the angel sighed, “I’m so glad to see you.”

“Cas?” Dean’s breath caught in his throat, “What are you doing here?”

“I…” the angel stared vacantly, the air of confusion burrowing into his brow, “I’m not sure I can answer that.”

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Dean’s voice staggered, nearly tripping, “I… I…. You just disappeared, man. You were _gone_. No phone call, no note. Did I… did I do something wrong? Did I make you leave?”

“No,” Castiel’s face contorted as if in pain, “No, of course not, Dean. You did nothing wrong. Nothing you could do would ever make me leave you.”

“I did, though!” Dean rushed towards him, “I screwed up! I should’ve—”

“Don’t!” Castiel held up his hand, “Don’t come any closer!”

Dean dug in his heels, “What? Why?!”

Carefully, Abbie stepped up to Dean. Grabbing him by the arm, she pulled him back from Castiel, “Something’s wrong here, Dean. He hasn’t moved from that spot since we saw him. He didn’t come towards you, nothing.”

“I’m stuck in this spot,” sighed Castiel, “I’ve been stuck here for… I don’t even know how long.”

“It’s been a month,” Dean felt a lump rising in his throat, “You’ve been gone a month.”

“A _month_ ,” the word fell out from his lips like a laugh, “I’ve had no idea. I tried counting the days, but I lost track after a while. I would often disappear from these woods. Sometimes I would reappear in the bunker—the same spot where I was when I last remember everything being normal—but you were never there. Neither you nor Sam. That—losing sight of the sun—made me lose track of the days. When I’ve been here, in this forest, sometimes it’s been day, sometimes night, sometimes something in between. Sometimes _I’ve_ been in between. In some… I don’t know what to call it… _nothing_ space, perhaps.”

Abbie tilted her head as she looked at Dean, “Did you say a month?”

“June seventeenth,” Dean answered; he would never forget it, “Sometime in the late afternoon.”

Abbie swallowed. “That’s when Crane disappeared.”

“A crane?” Castiel frowned, “What does a bird have to do with this?”

Abbie gave Dean a sideways glance and Dean told Cas, “Ichabod Crane. He’s a man, not a bird.”

“Do you know who he is?” Abbie asked Cas, “The same time you disappeared, he did too, right through a portal that opened right where you are standing.”

“I have not heard of anyone by that name,” Castiel raised an eyebrow, “But what do you mean when you say… _portal_?”

“We don’t really know yet,” Abbie answered, “It was a haze of, I dunno, I guess _blue_ light? But it kept changing colours, kind of like mother-of-pearl.”

“It was probably some kind of spell,” supplied Dean, “Crowley cast it. And we all know he likes his witchy spells.”

“Crowley?”

“Yeah. Have you seen him recently?”

“Dean, I haven’t seen _anyone_ recently. You two are the first people I’ve seen since the day you and Sam left to go on that case in Oregon. I’ve been stuck in this spot and I’ve tried to get out, but I can’t. I’ve screamed and nothing’s seemed to hear me. I’ve kicked at the undergrowth, all these dead leaves and dirt, but it just vanishes away into nothing when it gets a few feet from me. I don’t know what will happen if you come near me. I don’t want you to get sucked in here as well.”

“It’s got to be the portal,” Abbie said, “There must be some kind of connection between here—this spot in Sleepy Hollow—and whatever it was the Men of Letters bunker was built on top of.”

Dean looked at her, “And you think whatever spell Crowley cast, whatever portal he opened that _Donatello_ and Ichabod went through, it connected somehow to the bunker and that’s what sucked in Cas?”

“I think so.”

“Donatello?” Cas tilted his head to the side, “The ninja turtle?”

* * *

As he poured two cups of coffee, Sam scrolled through his phone and read Dean’s text: _Gone to check out the spot in the woods. Keep your phone on._ He held it up and called to Jenny, “They went out.”

“Yeah,” she took one of the cups from Sam and held her phone in her other hand, “Abbie texted me too.”

Sam read the time the message was sent. “It was over an hour ago. You think they’re okay?”

“It’s about a twenty minute walk away.”

“Should we go out and join them?”

“Should we, I dunno, shower first?”

Just then, Jenny’s phone buzzed. She read back her sister’s message: _At the spot. Come now. Bring the map._

“Crap,” she muttered, “We gotta go.”


	16. Chapter 16

Dean handed his phone to Abbie. It was already ringing. The number he’d dialed— _666_ —was spread across the screen. “Who is this?” she asked.

“That’s Crowley,” answered Dean, not taking his eyes off Castiel, “We’re gonna get him to tell us what the hell is going on here.”

“Dean,” Castiel lifted his hand to him, as if for a moment forgetting the barrier between them, “I don’t know what help he can be.”

“He cast this spell,” Dean stood just on the other side of the invisible barrier. Castiel was so close; it was torture being so close to him and not being able to touch him. “So I hope to whatever god is left up there that he can reverse it.”

“But I don’t think he realized that I got caught up in this. I don’t think he realized the connection to the bunker.”

“He knew _something_ , because he gave a map to Abbie that pointed her towards that bunker. He knew something was up with it.”

“No, he knew that she would need _your_ help.” As Abbie paced around, the ringing phone held to her ear, Cas lowered his voice to a whisper, “You still haven’t told me who she is.”

Dean couldn’t help but smirk, “Are you jealous?”

Cas raised an eyebrow, “Should I be?”

“No!” Dean’s voice was tender, “You shouldn’t be. Cas, man, I’m so sorry. Sam told me that you were worried.”

“Ah. I was wondering how long it would be before he told you that he knew.”

“He had to get me drunk and make me admit it,” sighed Dean, “But he told me that you thought I had doubts. Cas, you gotta know. I don’t have any doubts about you. Any problems are all _mine_. Man, you know how messed up I am. I… I…” he grit his teeth. He’d never said it before. He’d thought it, certainly. He knew it was true. He'd always know it was true, but he never said it. “I… love—”

“I know, Dean,” Cas cut him off with a smile, “I know.”

“He’s not picking up!” Abbie turned back around, interrupting them, “But I think he sent a text. It says _what do you want_.”

“Texting? Crowley doesn’t text,” Dean frowned.

Abbie shrugged, “What should I say? Should I text back?”

“Text him and tell him to answer his damn phone!”

As she turned back away, pacing again, Dean looked back to Cas. He stood so forlornly in his trench coat, arms hanging limply at his sides, that Dean wanted to say _screw the portal_ and leap melodramatically into his arms. But he knew Cas would never forgive him.

“Dean,” he started again, “I don’t know how long I’ve got here before I fade away again.”

“Don’t go!” he urged, “I’m not gonna leave this spot until we figure out how to get you out of there!”

“I’ll drift away soon, Dean. It’s what keeps happening.”

“Will you appear at the bunker?”

“Probably, in time. I don’t know how long it will take, or how long I will be there when I do.”

Abbie interrupted again, “He texted back _No can do, Not Moose_.”

Dean turned to her, snapping, “Then tell him to get his ass back to Sleepy Hollow. The spot where he cast the spell. He should know damned well what that means!” As he looked back to Castiel, something popped back into his head. “Wait, Cas. If you’ve materialized back in the bunker, then you might have seen anything that’s going on there. Have you? Have you seen anything?”

“I told you, Dean. I didn’t see anything. Or anyone.”

“It’s important, Cas. Because when I was trying to find you…” he proceeded to tell Castiel all about the calls he thought he had made to the other hunters, and the phantom version of their cars that had been there. “And we thought there might be a trap set there. But if you haven’t seen anything—”

“I didn’t see anything come through the front door. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t anyone in other parts of the bunker.”

Abbie stepped back up to Dean and handed him the phone, “I don’t think the person on the other end of this phone is Crowley.”

“What makes you think that?” Dean looked down at the phone. The screen read: _I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t even know who you are_. “Oh, that’s friggin’ fantastic.”

Just as he felt ready to throw his phone to the ground in frustration, Sam and Jenny appeared between the trees. Castiel looked at Jenny and then turned to Dean, “There are two of them?”

“Yes,” Abbie replied, “We’re called _women._ ”

Dean gave her a quick smile before looking back to Castiel, “They’re hunters. And pretty damned good ones, I imagine.”

As he and Jenny arrived, Sam grinned, “Good to see you, Cas!” He looked to his brother, “I got your message.”

“Good,” Dean grabbed Sam’s phone from his hands, “Because we need to get in touch with Crowley, like _now_.” As he texted Crowley from Sam’s phone— _hey man, what’s up_ —he turned back to Castiel. “We’re gonna get you out of there. I promise.”

“What are you talking about?” Sam stepped towards Castiel but Abbie grabbed him and pulled him back.

“I’m stuck in a portal,” explained Cas, pursing his lips as if to say _What else is new?_

“At least that’s what we think,” said Abbie, “The same portal that took Crane and the so-called angel to... wherever they went that probably wasn't heaven.”

Sam looked surprised, “The portal Crowley opened?”

“Yes,” Dean answered, holding up Sam’s phone for all to see. The reply from Crowley’s phone read: _Not much. U?_ “Only, Crowley ain’t really Crowley right now.”

“That seems a harmless enough reply,” shrugged Jenny.

“No,” Sam looked worried, “Crowley doesn’t really do texting.”

Dean rolled his eyes, “Not his style.”

“So, what?” asked Sam, “Is Crowley someone’s prisoner or something? Or did he just lose his phone?”

“We’re gonna have to do this old school.”

“Summon him?”

Dean nodded.

As he and his brother exchanged worried looks, Castiel’s voice cut in, urgent and panicking. “Um, Dean! Dean!”

He was fading, as if melding gently into the trees behind him. He started to blur, like a photo taken with a long exposure, gathering and diminishing in equal measure, leaving parts of himself like wisps in the air.

“Cas! Cas!” Dean fought with everything he could not to grab at the vanishing Castiel, “Cas, come back!”

“I’m going, Dean! This always happens like this! I’ll be—”

As his face turned opaque, Castiel froze like a leaf caught in the breeze. Dean screamed at the void he left: “Cas! No! Come back! I love you!”


	17. Chapter 17

“I’m not leaving here,” Dean snapped. His eyes had not left the vacant spot where—until a moment ago—Castiel had stood.

“Dean….” Sam knew it would be futile to argue. There would be no moving his brother as long as this spot was the only connection he had to the angel.

Abbie stepped in between the brothers. “It’s okay,” she said to Sam, “I’ll stay with him.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Jenny asked hesitantly, “What then?”

“I don’t know why it wouldn’t,” shrugged Sam, “Summoning a demon leaves them with no choice. They’re compelled to come.”

Dean turned at last with a snarl: “Then what the hell are you waiting for?! GO!” His eyes held his brother’s for a moment before Sam reluctantly nodded.

As him and Jenny took off back towards the cabin, Abbie put her hand on her hip and shot Dean a glare. “We’re all here to help, you know.”

“I know!” he growled, “But I’m a little on edge here, sister. I don’t need the third degree!”

Abbie rolled her eyes, “You don’t need to tell me that. I understand.”

Dean’s gaze took back to the empty spot in the trees where Castiel had stood. “Do you think he’s in the bunker right now? God, Abbie, he’s gotta be so scared.”

“He seemed like he was holding it together okay. He knows you’re on it now, Dean. He knows.”

She could see Dean’s lip trembling slightly as sighed. Quietly, he murmured, “Do you think he heard me?”

She forced a smile and repeated: “He knows.”

* * *

In the cabin, Jenny held open a canvas bag as Sam rushed about gathering things and tossing them in. “Oh god,” she muttered, “We’re actually going to summon a demon.”

“It sounds worse than it is,” Sam dropped a pouch of herbs into the bag, “It’s just Crowley.”

“Oh, yeah,” she laughed, “Only the _King_ of _Hell_.”

Sam grabbed a mortar and pestle, then a pack of matches, and then a knife, and dropped them into the bag. “That’s everything.” As he tried to slip the bag from Jenny’s hands, her grip tightened. Her eyes crinkled as she looked at him. “What’s wrong?”

“The King of Hell,” she repeated. Her voice was softer than its usual acerbic tone.

“Hey,” Sam tried to smile, cupping her cheek in his hand, “It sucks, I know. But Crowley’s just business as usual for us.”

“Yeah, and I get that. I do. We used to run around with the Horseman of Death on a daily basis, but that’s kinda my point. This is beyond what any of us have dealt with. We don’t know what it is!”

His other hand slid up her shoulder and he held her tightly. “That’s why we’re handling it together, me and you, Abbie and Dean.”

Pushing herself up onto her tiptoes, Jenny kissed him gingerly. “I just feel kinda guilty.” With a sigh, she closed her eyes. “Normally this would be… I dunno… kinda fun, you know? It’s… exciting when there’s something new. But I feel terrible for Abbie… and Dean. This isn’t just a case for them. This is… well, it’s their entire lives.”

As she pressed her face into the crook of his neck, Sam ran his hand through her hair. “We’ve been through this kind of thing before, Dean and I,” he murmured into the top of her head, “We’ve been to hell—both of us—we’ve been to heaven—both of us—we’ve been to purgatory—just Dean—wait, no, I went too, but just for a little bit. We’ve been to parallel worlds invented by angels. We’ve always found each other again. That’s the beauty of it: there’s no real end until we’re _ready_ for an end… until we’re both ready to give up on each other. And Dean’s not going to give up on Cas. And so I’m not going to give up on him either. We do what we can because that’s what we’ve always done.”

“So you think there’s a way to get Ichabod back to Abbie?” Jenny pulled her head back to look Sam in the eyes.

He smiled and gave her a kiss on the nose, “Definitely. If he came over two hundred years to get to her in the first place, then whatever this is… it is not a problem.”

* * *

Sam placed the bowl on top of the pentagram and chanted the incantation.

For a moment, nothing changed. The breeze still drifted between the trees; the sound of birds still speckled the distance.

But then a voice broke the silence: “Hello, boys…” Crowley stood several yards from Sam, same black suit as always. He let his eyes wander around the four of them. “… and _girls_.”

“Crowley!” Dean began immediately, “What’s been going on—?”

Abbie cut in evenly, with a hand Dean’s shoulder to calm him, “We need you to reverse the spell you cast in this spot.”

“This spot’s connected to the bunker and Cas got caught—”

“Enough!” Crowley cried, “Don’t tell me anything else!”

It was immediately clear to Sam and Dean that something about the King of Hell was _off_. It was the same feeling as the unusual text messages. Sam tried, “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“I said _Enough_ , Moose!” Crowley snapped, “Trust me on this. Go back somewhere safe and stay there. And this cabin you’re in, these woods—this town, Sleepy Hollow—is _not_ safe!”

“No!” Dean shouted, “I need some answers here, man!”

“I can’t tell you any!” roared Crowley. As he wheeled on Dean, his stare levelled and he stated simply and sternly: “ _Poughkeepsie._ ”

And then he vanished completely.


	18. Chapter 18

“Aw, crap,” Dean dropped his hands to his sides, “Isn’t that friggin’ swell?”

“So what do we do now?” shrugged Sam, “Just go all the way back to Kansas?”

“I don’t think we have a choice.”

Abbie stepped in, “Hold up. Are we seriously considering driving overnight just because a demon said to get outta Dodge?”

“He said _Poughkeepsie,_ ” answered Dean, “That’s a… a _safe word..._ of sorts. It means something’s up. Crowley’s in trouble. And if he says things are not safe in Sleepy Hollow, if he knows about that cabin, then we don’t have long before we need to move, do we?”

“But the cabin’s safe. It' s been warded—”

“He’s the King of Hell, Abb! And if someone who's not us has got his balls in a vice, then we can bet that person is pretty damned powerful!” As Dean whirled around to face the three of them, Sam could see something in his brother far more desperate and far more determined than anything he’d seen before. “We’re gonna go now! We’re getting everything we need from the cabin and the archives—every book that might help, every spell ingredient, every weapon—and we’re going straight on out! And we're not stopping unless someone’s really gotta pee!”

* * *

The day had long gone dark by the time they arrived. Nothing awaited them outside the bunker: no cars, no people, no demons, no angels. Not even any wildlife. No squirrels or anything.

Dean pulled up near the front door but did not shut off the engine. “You and Jenny go in, Sam,” he said, “We’re going to come in through the garage.”

The seriousness in his tone told Sam they’d be entering the bunker guns drawn.

Jenny caught this implication as well. “If anything’s in there, we’re flanking it?”

Dean’s smile did not reach his eyes. “Divide and conquer, sister.”

“How bad do you think it is in there?” Sam edged open his car door, “You think Crowley’s set us up?”

“All we got to go off is his warning to get outta Sleepy Hollow. The fact that he mentioned the cabin is signal enough. Besides, if he had wanted more information from us, he would’ve kept up talking. And, if someone was listening, he wouldn’t’ve been so obvious about telling us to shut the hell up. But he definitely couldn’t have been totally open with us. I think someone’s got him on a leash and they’re trying to make it look like they don’t. But they do. And they at least think they got him talking.”

Abbie murmured, “And what you don’t know they can’t get outta you.”

Both Sam and Dean heard her but neither of them acknowledged it; it was too strange and sinister a thought to bear. The only thing they could contemplate capturing and torturing the King of Hell was… well… themselves.

“All right then,” Sam sighed, slamming the car door behind himself, “See you on the—uh… _in_ side.”

* * *

As Baby pulled to a stop in the garage, Abbie couldn’t help but be impressed by the classic collection inside. “You taken any of these bad boys out for a spin?”

“Nah. They’ve been sitting so long, they need some work. And it’s been on my ‘one-day-when-this-is-all-said-and-done’ list.”

Before throwing open her door, Abbie gave him a wide grin, “You know there ain't a retirement. Besides, you’d hate for it to all really end.”

“Yeah, but one day, I’ll be too old for all this. Then I’d always imagined there’d be others to take over. Like Claire or Chrissy, maybe. Other, younger hunters, you know? Kids better than me.”

Abbie remembered one of their earlier, beer-enabled heart-to-hearts. “You could be someone else’s Bobby.”

The thought had never truly occurred to Dean before, at least not in the full scope, with cars to tinker with and a base to call home. “Yeah,” he couldn’t help but smile, “Or someone else’s Corbin? Yeah.” Saying it out loud only made it sound better. “Yeah!” He repeated, beaming, “I like that! I suppose it was always the happy ending I never saw out there for me.”

“The good thing is,” Abbie came around the car to meet Dean at his side, “You wouldn’t have to do it alone.”

“No,” his eyes met hers and held them. Her lips spread out in a smile to match his, “No, I wouldn’t, would I? We're gonna get Castiel back safe. Crane, too."

As they made their way in to the bunker, she added with a laugh, “And this place is _big!_ It’s definitely got a _headquarters_ vibe.”

“ _Headquarters_? Just what did you have in mind?”

* * *

In the main foyer of the bunker, Sam and Jenny slid down the steps, guns drawn. “Cas?! Cas!” cried Sam, as he could see standing—no, hovering—near the end of the table, a silky ghostlike outline. It was definitely wearing a trench coat.

But it made no noise.

“Look,” Jenny pointed to what seemed like a circle around the apparition of Castiel. The inside was a clean floor, but from the sharp line of the circle scattering outwards was a mess of leaves and dirt. “These leaves are the same as the trees in the woods in Sleepy Hollow. And this dirt. This must be the same undergrowth as the spot where we saw Castiel back there. He must have been kicking at the ground to try to get out of the portal, and the ground he kicked, it appeared here.”

“Wait,” Sam looked at the apparition as it wavered in and out of view, “If the leaves can pass through, why can’t he?” Frowning, he walked up to the portal. “Cas? Cas, if you can hear me—” Cutting off his words, something flew from the portal and smacked Sam across the face.

He nearly fell over backwards, the empty trench coat fumbling in his arms. As he looked back to the portal, stunned, the wavering apparition of Cas was gone.

“Why would he throw me his jacket?”

Jenny took the coat from his hands, and ran her eyes for it. Then, she thought to check the pockets. Inside one was a folded Gas N’ Sip receipt. “It’s that receipt paper where you just need to scratch it with your nail to write on it,” she explained. Scrawled across the back in poor penmanship were the words: _Nothing living can pass through the portal._

Jenny read them out loud.

There were more: _Dean, I love you too._


	19. Chapter 19

Guns drawn, Dean and Abbie scoured the bunker from top to bottom. With nothing recovered and nothing amiss, they met up with Sam and Jenny in the main foyer.

Sliding his gun into his waistband, Dean nodded at his brother, “It’s all clear.”

But Sam’s face was solemn. He looked mournfully at Dean and held up the trench coat. Immediately, Dean rushed forward, yanking it from his hands. “What happened?”

“We never talked to him. He was disappearing as we came in. This came flying out from the portal, or spot. Whatever you wanna call it.”

Dean turned the coat over in his hands. “Did he say anything?”

“I don’t think he could. But this was in the pocket,” he passed over the receipt.

As Dean read it, his lips trembled, “ _Nothing living can pass through the portal. Dean, I…_ well. That doesn’t solve much, does it?”

Jenny shrugged, “So what do we do now?”

“Get some sleep,” Dean replied, his resolve steeling once again, “And I mean _actual sleep_ , you two.”

* * *

Dean decided to sleep in the foyer. If Castiel reappeared, there was no way he was going to miss it. Most of the night passed as Dean sat huddled on a wooden chair, staring at the empty circle surrounded by undergrowth.

It was nearing four am when Abbie appeared, in sweatpants and bare feet, carrying two steaming mugs. She had a couple of blankets tucked under her elbow. She set one mug in front of Dean and slipped into the chair beside him.

“Have you been awake all this time?”

“I think I may have nodded off once or twice. One time, I thought Cas was coming back. He stepped out of the portal and walked up to me. As he touched me, it gave me a jolt and I woke up. It was a friggin’ dream.” As he picked up the mug, he sniffed it, “What is this?”

Abbie smirked. “It’s called chamomile tea.”

“This was in _our_ kitchen?!”

“It was with the bag of food I cleared out of the cabin before we left. I thought you could use a cup.”

“Have _you_ been awake all this time?”

“I dozed off for a while, but woke up probably about an hour ago. After tossing and turning, I thought I’d just get up. Your bed is pretty comfy, though.”

“Gotta love memory foam.”

* * *

In the morning, Sam strolled in to find the two of them asleep: Dean with his head on the desk, Abbie, knees curled up to her chest, her head on Dean’s back. The blankets were wrapped around them.

* * *

As the day wore on, Dean refused to leave the foyer until Castiel appeared. “Do you think he’s stuck?” he asked of Abbie.

Her eyes lifted up from Grace Dixon’s journal. “Don’t think about it. That’s unproductive and you’ll only stress yourself out.”

“I know,” he murmured, “I know,” and looked back to the laptop screen.

A sparse dinner of pizza and potato chips spread across the bunker table. No one spoke for a while as they shovelled the only meal of the day into their faces. Their eyes had scoured every source they could find. Loose pages scattered across the middle of the table; Abbie had begun piles of information. One pile of stuff on witches. One pile of stuff from the 1780s. One pile of stuff on time travel. But that was mostly anecdotal.

“All I can see in Grace’s journal,” Abbie sighed, dropping the book down before her, “Is to do with reversing the spell. She only mentions having reversed the spell Katrina cast. And I lived that, so….”

“I haven’t been able to see another spell anywhere in the Men of Letters stuff,” added Sam.

“None of Katrina’s stuff has anything either," said Jenny, "We all know she needed the Grimoire to do it.”

“That’s because it’s dark magic,” says Abbie, “And even dark powers are afraid to use it. It has serious repercussions.”

Dean frowned, “What 'serious repercussions' are we talking about, like _Back to the Future_ type stuff? Like re-writing history?”

“Exactly. Isn’t that how it works when angels use time travel?”

“I don’t think so,” Dean thought, “Cas used it pretty flippantly, really. It was more like whatever happened _happened_. Me going back in time always happened. It wasn’t a re-do, you know?”

Abbie sat up, “So what we’re dealing with is two different kinds of time travel?”

“If that’s true,” grinned Dean, “Then we just need an idea of what kind we’re dealing with.”

Sam flopped back in a huff, “You say it like it’s going to be an easy thing to figure out.”

“Wait, it might be!” Jenny leapt up, “If we’re talking about at time-line where someone has changed something, then we probably wouldn’t know about it now, would we? I mean, think about it. The time-line would have changed so, with the butterfly effect or whatever, there most likely wouldn’t be the original impetus to go back existing now. Do you know what I mean?”

All three of them stared at her blankly.

Dean smirked. “Humour us.”

Jenny carried on, “The only evidence we have for time travel is the map printed on parchment so it stands the test of time, right? That implies that someone created it thinking that it needed to last because it needed to be there in the time they came from. Does that make sense?”

“ _Keep_ humouring us.”

“Okay,” Jenny sighed, “We’re dealing with the ‘whatever happened _happened_ ’ sort of time travel. Someone knew that by going back in time to make the map so it would last would _not_ mess with the timeline.”

“Gotcha,” Dean grinned.

“You do?”

“Not really, but I get the point of what you’re saying. Timey-wimey something or other. It wasn't a spell; it was an angel,” he looked to his brother, “Sammy, does this make sense to you?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Abbie frowned, “So we’re dealing with an angel… not a witch?”

A voice came from the foyer: “Or a witch that is working with an angel. Or a demon.”

As they whirled around, Castiel had rematerialized in the spot.

“Cas!” Dean was on his feet, “Cas, where have you been?!”

“I was in the… nowhere space for a while,” his face dropped, “And then I was in the woods.”

“You’ve been gone a long time—”

“I saw something in the woods,” he cut in, “I saw people walking towards where you said that cabin was. Naturally, I am glad to see that you are not there anymore.”

“We summoned Crowley. He told us to get outta there. He said _Poughkeepsie_.”

“Crowley?” Castiel’s eyes narrowed, “Crowley was one of the people I saw. The other two I couldn’t make out. They were cloaked somehow.”

“’Cloaked’?” Abbie asked, alarmed, “Like with a spell?!”

“No,” Castiel frowned, “Like with hoods and capes. _Cloaked_.” He looked to Dean, “That _is_ what that word means, right?”

Dean’s eyes crinkled into a smile, “Yeah, Cas, that’s what it means.”


	20. Chapter 20

“How long do you think you have?” Dean stepped up as close as he could to Castiel.

Castiel’s eyes crinkled, “I never know for sure.”

Dean stood there for a moment, lost, frustrated, and a little dumbfounded.

Tentatively, Sam watched this awkward display, wondering just how long it might go on. There was little he could say to make either of them feel better, and there was so little else they had in the way of answers. “Cas,” started Sam, “You don’t have any idea who this angel might be? Isn’t there any way of tuning in your angel radio or something? I mean, you can’t be totally trapped in there. Sound passes through. We can talk to each other.”

“Sound waves aren’t living, Sam,” Cas shook his head, “I think our angel radio is a part of us, so… well, it _is_ alive.”

Abbie spoke up, “But other than being trapped, are you… at full capacity?”

“What do you mean?” Cas narrowed his eyes; he still hadn’t decided what to make of Abigail Mills and the way she and Dean had grown so close so quickly.

“Do you have all your angel – whatever – powers?”

“I suppose. Yes.”

“Does that mean you can read real fast? A whole book in a second, like E.T.?”

Dean turned to Abbie, “I don’t think he gets that reference—”

“I am well aware of the large-headed alien, Dean,” he sounded irritated, “But, yes, I suppose I could read a book really quickly. What does that have to do with anything?”

“I just mean,” she forced smile, “We’re at a loss. And any help might be in those giant stacks of books we are trying to get through—” she pointed to the table behind her. “And those books certainly aren’t living. We could pass them into you. You could read them all in the time it would take us to get through one. You would be able to see if there are any answers that would help us get you out of that portal.”

“Aw,” Dean grinned at Cas, “Like my own little _Search the Web_.”

“Okay,” he nodded, “I can give it a try.”

* * *

As they handed Castiel book after book, nothing significant revealed itself. Then Jenny tossed him one book with a thick leather cover and pages that nearly flaked they were in such bad shape. “Ugh,” he winced as small flakes of aged paper fell over his shirt.

“Sorry,” Jenny shrugged, “Book worms got into a box of old books that Corbin had at the cabin.”

“Book worms?” Dean squirmed, “Those aren’t _real_ …. Are they?”

“Don't tell me bookworms gross you out,” laughed Abbie as the four of them watched Castiel flip through the book.

“Interesting,” Castiel murmured, “You brought this book with you from Sleepy Hollow?”

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s from 1963,” said Cas slowly, as the book flipped through to the end, "And it has the Men of Letters seal right here on the spine. Well, the bit of the spine that didn’t get eaten by a bookworm. Did you miss that somehow?”

“What?” gasped Abbie, “Corbin had a Men of Letters book? Wait, there’s no way—”

“Can’t be,” cut in Jenny, “You guys said the Men of Letters went defunct in the fifties. Corbin would’ve been a kid.”

Sam added, “And Cas just said the book was from the sixties. The Men of Letters weren’t around anymore by then.”

“Unless they still were,” Dean rubbed his head, “I mean, we are also talking time travel here. Cas, what was the book about?”

“It’s just a manual. Like a Boy Scout Guidebook,” Jenny replied, “I was looking at it earlier. It’s got stuff on how to light fires, how to tie knots, how to pitch a tent, all that sort of stuff. I didn’t even realize that it was a Men of Letters book.”

“Well,” Castiel turned the book around, “It _is_ that. But it has something else written on the pages, too. As if the pages were printed twice, each with a different kind of ink. I suppose if you were to put it under ultra-violet light, you would see the other ink. But I can see it myself right now. With my… as you call them, ‘angel – whatever – powers’.”

“So it’s a palimpsest?” said Sam.

“A what now?” frowned Dean, “Do you mean it reads the same backwards as forwards?”

“No,” Sam scoffed, “How many times do I…. ugh, that’s a _palindrome_. A palimpsest is a book where the pages have been scraped clean of ink so it can be reused. Kinda like re-recording over a video tape. It was common in the parchment days.”

Abbie pointed at the book in Castiel’s hands, “But this isn’t parchment. This is from the sixties.”

“I think,” replied Castiel, “That someone was using the manual as a cover, to disguise what the book is really about.”

She forced a smile for him. “And what is it about?”

“It’s a series of spells for how to control angels and demons.”

“Spells? Like for witches?”

Cas glared at her, “ _Obviously_ for witches.”

Sam broke in, “Well, we know the Men of Letters weren’t into spell-casting. Remember, Dean? How they kicked out Cuthbert Sinclair for using too many spells?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Dean glanced from Sam to Abbie to Cas, “So why did the Men of Letters have this book? And why were they keeping it so secret? I mean, this looks like they even kept it secret from themselves.”

“Unfortunately, the book does not say that.”

“More importantly, does it have anything about how to get you out of there?”

“No,” Cas shook his head, “Not directly. But it did have this detail.” He opened the book again, and held up the page opposite the title page, the page with the small print detailing the publication information. It read:

Copyright 1963 Albert Magnus

Aquarian Star Publishing House, Ltd.

110 Hunter Ave

Sleepy Hollow, NY

USA    10591


	21. Chapter 21

Dean looked back to Abbie in shock: “What the hell are the Men of Letters doing in Sleepy Hollow?”

Abbie raised an eyebrow, “At least now we’ve got a good lead on what’s connecting the _there_ to _here_.”

As they looked back and forth between each other, unsure what to make of it all, Jenny grabbed another stack of books, “These were from the same box of Corbin’s.”

As Castiel tossed the spellbook back, Jenny tossed him one and Sam tossed him another.

Dean looked to Abbie, “I’m thinking we can assume that whatever those spells are for, as in to control angels and demons, that’s how they got Crowley.”

Abbie turned to Castiel, “Maybe that’s what’s got you right now. Maybe you didn’t get stuck in a portal. Maybe it’s a containment spell of some kind. Was there a spell in there at all that referred to something like that?”

Tossing one of the books back to Sam with a shake of his head, Cas replied to Abbie, “They’re all a containment spell of some kind or another. That’s sort of the essence of _control_.”

Abbie grit her teeth but held back a retort. Dean caught this reaction of hers and looked back to Cas. “She’s trying to help you.”

“I’m sorry,” he scoffed, “I’ve been trapped in a portal for a month with no one to talk to. I think my people skills are getting rusty again,” He tossed the second book back at Sam, “Nothing.”

Jenny threw him another.

As he cracked it open, Abbie said, “I accept your apology. I’ve been on edge too. Ever since Crane went through that portal—”

“Wait,” Castiel’s voice grew urgent, “Who did you say went through the portal?”

“Ichabod Crane,” Abbie shot back, “My _boyfriend_.”

“And he was a… _man out of time_?”

“You could say that.”

He tossed aside the book he was holding and reached out his hand, “I just remembered something! Give it back!” Scrambling, Sam tossed him the spellbook. Castiel flipped through quickly. “Ah, here it is. _A man out of time_.” He turned the book around in triumph, presenting them with the open pages. As everyone frowned in response, he blushed, “I forgot, you can only see the diagram detailing how to fold your uniform without wrinkling it—ah!” his eyes widened with joy, “You _roll_ it! That is fascinating—!”

“Cas!” snapped Dean.

“Yes, sorry. As I was saying. There’s a spell here that lists a _man out of time_ as the key… well, _ingredient_ , I suppose you could call it.”

Abbie’s jaw unhinged. “What does the spell do?”

“It didn’t really jump out at me before, because I wasn’t thinking about _your_ situation, but….” Cas’s voice trailed off solemnly, “But I think it can turn demons and angels into… into _humans_.”

“What?” Sam nearly dropped the handful of books, “Like turn _all_ demons and angels into humans?”

“Yes, I think _all_ , but I don’t know for sure. It reads rather archaically. It actually says: _With the utmost precision of calculation, the accomplishment of this endeavour shall render into mortal flesh the unearthly choirs of Heaven and Hell_.”

“Well,” sighed Dean, “That’s clear enough.”

Jenny spoke up, “But wouldn’t that be a good thing? I mean, no demons, no angels? And it’s not like it’s killing them, either. It’s making them human. Wouldn’t that be… like, I dunno, awesome?”

Castiel’s eyes met with Dean’s and he couldn’t help but let a small smile escape. “It would be.”

“So no demons or angels anymore,” Abbie folded her arms, “But it seems to me demons and angels are the only ones who could give witches a run for their money. Of course the witches want to get rid of them.”

Jenny added: “No one would be left to stop the witches from doing whatever they wanted.”

“There’d still be us: Hunters,” Abbie replied, “We could stop them.”

“They must not have finished the spell yet,” said Sam, “Because, Cas, you and Crowley both still have your powers. Maybe they need other ingredients that they haven’t got yet. We just need to find out what else they need and go after it before they do.”

Dean clenched his jaw. “Then we’ve still got time.”

“Um, not really….” Castiel murmured. He looked as if a smoky haze was enveloping his body and he flickered like the flame of a candle.

“Cas!” Dean leapt forward, “You hold tight! We are going to get you out of there!”

As he wavered in and out, Castiel threw the book from himself. It landed, pages crumbled on the marble floor.

And he was gone.

“Damn it!” spat Dean.

Jenny quickly scooped up the book. “He said the spells were in another kind of ink. Maybe one we could read under ultra-violet light. We might just need a black light. I’m gonna go get one and we can find out what else this spell needs.”

Sam took the book from her and opened the front page, reading again the printing details. “And I’m going see if there’s anything online about that publisher. They’ve obviously got something to do with all of this.”

As they scurried back to work, Dean looked to Abbie. He knew exactly what she was thinking. “Ab, if they haven’t finished the spell yet, then….”

She smiled. “… Then Ichabod’s still alive.”


	22. Chapter 22

The sound of terrible pop music screeching away in the mall speakers make Dean cringe. “Come on. Let’s get in and out as soon as possible.”

Abbie smoothed down her hair and pulled her blazer straight. A surge of adrenalin flushed through her and she felt both thrilled and terrified all at once. “Oh god,” she murmured, looking in horror at the photo booth, “I’m about to commit fraud.”

“It’s hilarious you’re scared about this,” muttered Dean.

“I already have an ID. Why do I need this?”

“Because as soon as you hand over your real badge to someone, there’s a trail. It’s not just about getting into places we’re not supposed to, it’s about people not knowing who we really are,” as he guided her towards the booth, he added, “I mean, come on. Jenny’s got a fake name on her fake IDs, doesn’t she?”

Abbie rolled her eyes, “I think she uses obscure Disney characters.”

Dean tried to laugh but then decided who was he to judge? “I guess that makes sense.”

“Sure it does, Agent  _Iago_.”

* * *

As Jenny held the blacklight over the pages of the Boy Scout manual, she transcribed whatever she could make out. “Wow,” she laughed somberly, “This spellbook is  _dark_.”

“Um hm,” Sam barely heard her. His eyes had been busily scanning over the computer screen for the better part of the night.

“There are all kinds of crazy ingredients in here. But most things are the usual stuff you’d get anywhere.”

“Uh huh,” Sam murmured again.

Jenny kept transcribing, “Since we’ve gotta go out to get the ingredients for this famous witch-killing spell of Bobby’s anyway, it couldn’t hurt to ask around if anyone’s come in looking for these things.”

“Yup.”

With a sigh, Jenny looked up from the book and gave Sam a glare. “And then maybe we’ll stop at a Plucky Pennywhistle’s on the way back. Play some Skeeball and hit on some clowns. What do you think?”

“Sounds good.”

Jenny gave a snort and then laughed. Kicking back, she folded her arms behind her head and set her feet on the table. “Okay, hot shot, what info have you got for me?”

“So get this,” Sam started, “So the earliest reference I can find to Aquarian Star Publishing is from 1693. But from the sound of it, it wasn’t exactly new at the time. There an old diary reference to a bookseller in what became Brooklyn. This had been translated from Dutch, but apparently, it says something like  _from the esteemed and established printer_ … yada yada,  _of the six-pointed star_. It says here in a footnote that it was standard in Dutch towns to have gable stones, or tablet, carved with an image depicting the name of the place or the picture of the resident’s trade.”

“So there was a printer in Brooklyn who had the Men of Letters symbol on his  _house_?”

“Yeah, sounds like it,” Sam rubbed his chin, “I wonder if the house is still there?”

“It’s probably a Starbucks.”

* * *

As they stood in line at Kinko’s, Abbie cutting the four awkward photos into what would become four different IDs, Dean grinned, “Any ideas what names you’re gonna use,  _Agent_?”

Abbie pursed her lips. “Yes. I’ve been thinking. I’m getting four, right? FBI, CIA, US Marshall, and what was the other one…?”

“Park Ranger. You have no idea when that’s gonna come in handy.”

“Okay, so… Agent Carter, Agent May, Agent Khan, and Agent… Danvers,” Abbie smiled, “She can be the Park Ranger.”

“Ah, Marvel references. I get it.”

Her eyes lit up, “I  _knew_ you would. I knew it.”

* * *

Walking back to the Impala, Abbie cradled her new IDs in her hand. They were still fresh from the laminator. “Wow,” she breathed, “I can still feel the heat of the crime.”

As Dean laughed, his phone began to vibrate. “It’s Sammy,” he said quickly before flicking it open, “What’s up?”

They reached the car, he flicked shut the phone and gave her a wide, beaming grin.

She smirked in retaliation. “What’s tickling your undercarriage?”

“Get in loser, we’re going shopping.”

“Ugh,” she rolled her eyes, “I should never have made you watch that movie.”


	23. Chapter 23

Jenny passed the blacklight over the page. She checked the words against the translation, and then wrote the translated ingredient in the margin. It was the last one. And it sounded like the worst. She picked up her phone and dialled.

“Abbie?” she said as her sister’s voice answered, “I got the list.”

* * *

Abbie hung up the phone and held her small notebook up to Dean, “Got the list of ingredients.”

“Awesome,” Dean glanced briefly back, not wanting to take his eyes off the road, “Wait, is it awesome? Because this has the potential to be a friggin’ disaster.”

“I don’t really know a lot about it, but plenty of these things look to be fairly run of the mill,” Abbie sighed, flopping back against the passenger seat of the Impala, “Which doesn’t help us. And all the big ticket items, the _man out of time_ and this last one, the _weapon of an ancient god_ , those aren’t exactly corner store purchases.”

“’Weapon of an ancient god?’ That’s got to be the hardest thing to find. Or the easiest. For all we know, there were millions of ancient gods and they all fought with sticks and stones."

Abbie laughed, “Right. Otherwise we’d be looking for something ridiculous, like the hammer of Thor!”

“Aw, crap!" the Impala lurched momentarily as Dean almost slammed on the brakes, "I wish I knew what happened to that.”

“Um, what? You had the hammer of Thor?!” Abbie raised an eyebrow, “Wait. You know what? I don’t even know why I ask anymore.”

* * *

As Sam finished transcribing a note for Castiel - whenever he might return – that explained their absence, he folded it into a small paper airplane and lofted it gently into the empty circle in the bunker floor.

“Nice shot,” smirked Jenny as she reappeared with a bag slung over her shoulder.

“You ready?” asked Sam.

“Brooklyn, here we come,” she grinned.

* * *

The bell rang atop the door to the dingiest store they had set foot into yet. It made Abbie think of _It’s a Wonderful Life_. If that bell ever gave an angel its wings, she felt sorry for that poor angel. The place was lit by stark fluorescent lights that made the tie-dyed bongs and Metallica patches in the display case look all the more depressing.

“Are you sure this place is kosher?” she muttered to Dean under her breath.

“They had the right signs on the door.”

“So did the others, but none of them looked like they were going to give me hepatitis.”

He turned on his charming grin for the cashier, a greasy, mousy looking man with far too little facial hair for the size of his chin. “Good day to you, sir. I’ve got a question for you.” Dean dropped the list of ingredients onto the counter. “Any of this _ring a bell_?”

The guy stared on blankly as he picked up the piece of paper. His eyes studied it and his brow furrowed ever-so-slightly. “What’re you guys making? A mind-altering spell of some kind?”

Dean adjusted his tie and cast a look back to Abbie. “What do _you_ think?”

“You cops?” the guy asked in a sprawling sort of voice.

“We’re hunters,” answered Dean with a satisfied smile.

“Well, man,” the guy said lazily, “We sell most of this stuff every day, but some of this stuff…. Man… it’s not like we had a run on Mjolnirs or anything.”

“Mjolnirs?” Abbie looked unimpressed.

“Thor’s hammer,” supplied Dean.

“Oh, I know the name of it,” she snapped, “Marvel, remember? I’m just surprised _he_ knows.”

Dean’s eyes took back to the cashier. “Yeah,” he smirked, “That is a little suspicious. Kinda funny, ain’t it, _man_ …? That list says _weapon of an ancient god_ , and you think of the same weapon we do.”

The cashier shrugged, “Can you think of _another_ weapon of an ancient god?”

“It’s the only one I’ve ever seen. But I reckon you don’t get out to angel and demon auctions much, do you? So why’d it pop into your head when you thought of a _weapon of an ancient god_?”

The cashier flinched slightly as Dean studied him. “I just watched _The Avengers_ …?”

“Yeah,” drawled Dean, “I’m not buying that. Who came in here looking?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, yes, you do, grease monkey. Now who came in here asking?”

“Ugh,” the cashier shook his arms nervously, like a kid about to wet himself, “It was a tall guy. A skinny guy with a beard. He was dressed weird. I thought he was role-playing or something. He had a list a lot like yours. I gave him whatever of the simple things he wanted, like the pig’s blood and the dried herbs and stuff, but when it came to the _weapon of an ancient god_ , I didn’t know what to tell him. He listed off a few possibilties, but none of them I'd ever heard of. Mjolnir was the only one that sounded familiar. I didn’t know where to tell him to go.”

Abbie pushed past Dean, her eyes wide, “Did he say anything about the _man out of time_?”

“No,” the guy wavered, “He didn't ask about that, so I didn’t say anything. I wouldn’t’ve known _what_ to say!”

“Did he give you his name?”

“No!” the guy looked dumbfounded, “Why would he do that?”

Abbie turned back to Dean, “Come on. We’ve got all we need to know.”

As the bell rang again, chiming into the air on their way back outside, Dean looked at her. “Is the tall, skinny guy with a beard who I think it is?”

Abbie could barely hold back a lump welling in her throat as she nodded.

“But why would Ichabod be looking for the ingredients?” frowned Dean, “You think he was under orders? Under duress?”

Folding her arms, Abbie stalked off back to the Impala. “Give me your keys,” she demanded, “I’m driving now.”


	24. Chapter 24

The sun's light on the highway had long given way to darkness. “Icabod is not stupid,” Abbie clenched her knuckles on the steering wheel.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Careful with Baby, all right?!” Several hours of driving and Dean had yet to relax. He fiddled with the tape deck. “Can we change the music already?”

“What? Are you sick of The Smiths? Besides, doesn’t driver get some kind of special privilege over music choices? And shotgun sh—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m shutting my cakehole.” He folded his arms and resumed looking uneasily out the window.

“Ichabod is not stupid,” Abbie repeated, “He must have known what was going on. He must have known what this spell was for.”

“He probably thought it was a good idea. Turning all angels and demons into humans.”

“I just can’t imagine him working with witches though. He’s learned his lesson on that front.”

Dean started drumming his fingers on the window ledge. Abbie had already told him all about Katrina and he had little to say on the subject after making an awkward joke about _Hocus Pocus._

After several minutes silence, Abbie pointed to the book Dean had abandoned in his lap. “So you're just giving up?”

“I can't read in the car. It makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“I didn’t know!” he protested, “I'm hardly ever a passenger!”

"Next motel I see, we’re pulling in. We need a back-up plan if Mjolnir isn’t in Wyoming.” As Abbie stretched her neck, working out the kinks, she added, “God! How do you do this all the time? All this _driving!_ It’s exhausting just zig-zagging back and forth across the country.”

“Do you want me to take over?”

But Abbie had grown single-minded in her determination. Her hands gripped tighter on the wheel. “No.”

* * *

There were few motels in Brooklyn, if none at all. So Sam had to find a hotel online. It was cheap, but adequately quirky, especially for Brooklyn.

“This is unnerving,” he said, making a beeline for the window as they entered. Through the wicker blinds, he saw the brick building opposite and nothing else. “I don’t like not being about to keep an eye on the car.”

Jenny dropped their bags on the floor with a sigh, “It will be fine, Sam.” As she took a look around the room, she added, “Huh. So this is what ‘rustic industrial chic’ looks like. Now I know what label to put on 'hipster'.”

As he collapsed on the bed, she pulled out a bottle of wine from her bag. Sam grimaced, “No beer?”

“What? You don’t like wine? I thought we could kick it up a notch.”

“I think it’s an acquired taste.”

“Yeah, well,” Jenny smirked as she rooted through the kitchenette for a corkscrew, “ _Acquire it_.”

As the cork pulled out with a small ‘pop,’ Sam was already digging through the most extensive guidebook to Brooklyn and New York City they could find in a local bookshop.

* * *

Abbie pulled into a motel on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. Silhouettes of cowboy hats graced the room divider. “Well,” sighed Dean, “I wonder if they get HBO. I’m a little behind on _Girls_.”

Pushing past him, Abbie carried in the stack of books they’d brought with them: everything they could find in the bunker on ancient gods. Dropping it with a thud onto the table, she brushed off her hands and turned to Dean. “How about research?”

Dean had not left the doorway, “How about _let’s go get a drink._ ”

* * *

As she buttoned a cardigan over her collared shirt and slipped on pair of fake eyeglasses, Jenny gave Sam a wide smile. “What do you think? It feel like I'm a superhero and this is my Clark Kent. I’d have you fooled. Totally academic, right?”

“Yeah,” Sam tucked his tie into his sweater vest and checked his hair in the rearview mirror, “Like _I’d_ ever believe that. I watched you knock back a whole bottle of wine.”

“Do you honestly think academics aren’t the biggest drinkers of them all?! Besides, I did _not_ drink that alone!”

Sam laughed, “You did! You plied _me_ with bourbon, remember? Where had you been hiding that?”

“Well, Sam Winchester,” she said with satisfaction, “This ain’t my first rodeo.”

Jenny pulled his tie back out of his sweater and used it to pull his lips towards hers. After she gave him a long, deep kiss, she grinned and let go of the tie. At that, she climbed from the car and slammed the door shut behind her.

He hurried to follow her into the Brooklyn archives, tucking the tie back into his sweatervest and wiping her chapstick from his face.

* * *

Inside, Jenny waltzed up to the front counter of the small, stone building and greeted the girl seated there. “Hello!” she trilled, affecting a terrible accent, “I am Dr. Marie Toulouse, from the Department of History with Maastricht University.” She placed an ID card on the desk for the clerk’s benefit. “It’s in the Netherlands.”

“Oh,” the girl looked up from her smartphone. She was young, perhaps only twenty, with a piercing through her lip and a shock of pink dye in her hair. “I’ve heard of it!”

“You have?” Jenny’s face fell, but then she caught herself, “I mean, of course you have. It’s… famous.”

“So,” the girl noticed Sam and let her eyes drift up and down him, “What can I help you with?”

“We are looking for information on the original Dutch settlement in Brooklyn. Specifically,” Sam placed a picture of the Men of Letters symbol on the counter for the girl to see, “A printer that lived and worked here. He would have had this symbol on the gable stone of his house.”

“Okay,” the girl rose to her feet, “We’re not supposed to leave anyone alone down there, but we’re short-staffed today. Our attending historian had to call in sick. Some kind of family emergency.” Sam and Jenny shared a look. “But I can show you where the archives for the Dutch settlement are. You can look through, I suppose. I mean, you’re with a history department. You know what you’re doing, right?”

“Of course,” Jenny grinned.

The girl handed them each a pair of white gloves and some tweezers. “Follow me.”

As they entered the archives below, the room looked like an old dungeon, empty of people, but filled with stacked of files. It reminded Jenny immediately of the archives in Sleepy Hollow. She turned to ask the girl where the information on the old Dutch settlement were but the door slammed shut behind them.

Not only had the clerk closed the door behind them, but she locked it, trapping them inside.

* * *

Abbie followed Dean through the dingy warehouse as they searched for any clue as to who might have come looking for the hammer of Thor.

“Are you telling me you just left it abandoned in a warehouse?” she asked incredulously, “You didn’t take it? You didn’t put it somewhere safe?”

“Sam had just killed a guy with it! A guy that just friggin' vanished! What were we supposed to do?”

“You mean Sam picked it up?” she gasped, “Doesn’t that mean he’s supposed to rule Asgard or something?”

“I don’t think it’s like the comic books, sister. I mean, how the hell else did anyone get it to the auction?”

Abbie stopped in the middle of the dark hallway, but Dean kept walking up ahead, peering his head into the open doors. “So anyone could have picked it up since then, you’re telling me?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he muttered, “But what else have we got to go on? I mean it would be nice if someone just walked right up with it in their hands, but—”

A voice interrupted them: “Do you mean just like this?”

As both of them whirled around, there, in the middle of the dark and dingy warehouse, stood Ichabod Crane. With Mjolnir in his hands.


	25. Chapter 25

Grinning to herself, the clerk in the archives waltzed away from the door. The woman who called herself Dr. Marie Toulouse she had never seen before, but Sam Winchester she would recognize anywhere. Satisfied with herself, she sat back down at the desk, picked up the phone and dialed.

The familiar voice on the other end answered, “What news?”

“They took the bait. Got them locked up as we speak.”

“The Winchesters?”

“Just one of them. The tall one. And a girl he was with. Said she was a historian, but it’s a lie.”

“Just the younger Winchester, hm? And an unknown girl? That’s hardly beneficial.”

The clerk’s grin fell. “Dean probably knows exactly where he is though, so it’s only a matter of time before he comes for him. We'll get him then.”

“And risk the inevitable fight? No. We need to find out who this girl is and why the Winchesters are with her.”

“What should I do?”

The voice on the phone thickened: “Whatever you have to.”

* * *

“Crane!” Abbie took off sprinting down the corridor towards Ichabod, ready to launch herself into his arms.

“Lieutenant,” he beamed at her, pronouncing it the British way that he did. But at the last second, just as she was about to throw her arms out, he held up his hand and shouted, “Stop!”

Abbie staggered to a halt as Dean was jogging to catch up. “Are you stuck in a portal too?” he asked.

“Pardon me? A portal?” Crane frowned, “To what could you possibly be referring? I…” As he still held his hand keeping Abbie at a distance, he regretted having to say this: “I… well… it is imperative that I be certain you are who I sincerely hope you are.”

“Crane,” Abbie answered, “ _Captain_. Douse me with holy water. Do what you gotta do. I don’t mind. It’s me. I swear to you.”

His eyes never left hers. “It is not demons I fear, but another—I would wage _even fouler_ —creature. It’s powers of deception are frightfully uncanny.”

“You definitely talk like an _Ichabod_ ,” muttered Dean.

Frowning, Crane pointed a long finger at Dean. “Who is this man?”

Without looking to Dean, Abbie waved a hand back, gesturing to him, “He’s just a hunter.”

“A hunter?” Crane rolled his eyes, “Shall I require any large game to roast on a _spit_ , I shall contact him post-haste.”

Dean let the indignity go as Abbie asked, “What kind of creature are you talking about?”

“Something that can take the form of another. The full likeness. The voice as well. It requires nothing more than a touch in order to do so.”

Dean cut in, “Does it shed its skin when it’s done?”

“Yes,” Crane looked disgusted, “It is a truly terrifying thing to behold. How do you know of such a thing?”

“You’re dealing with a shapeshifter,” Dean grinned, “ _That’s_ the kind of hunter I am.”

“What did you say your name was?” asked Crane.

“Winchester,” Dean said suavely, even though he knew Crane would not get the reference, “ _Dean_ Winchester.”

Crane’s eyes widened. “I’ve heard that name. But not in reference to a hunter; in reference to a _legacy_.”

“A legacy?”

“Yes,” nodded Crane, “A legacy of the Men of Letters. That is who I have been told _Dean Winchester_ is. That is, if you are indeed Dean Winchester, and not a… a… _shapeshifter_.”

Abbie looked to him tenderly, “It’s me, I swear it. I’m not a shapeshifter. I love you, Crane. What else can I say to make you believe me? I love you.”

“And I you,” he smiled, “Of that we both can be certain.”

A smooth grin spread across her face, “I _could_ remind you about that first night we, uh…. In the cabin? That thing you said, while we… you know?”

He cut her off, cheeks reddening as Dean awkwardly cleared his throat. “Yes, right! No need to remind me! I remember quite clearly.”

At this, she leapt into his arms. Mjolnir crashed to the ground with a heavy _clunk_ as Crane swept her up. Dean, turning red himself, felt obligated to turn away.

* * *

Sam ran at the door with his chair-turned-battering ram for the umpteenth time. This try, too, was fruitless. Jenny yelled again at her cell phone. “Argh! Why is there no reception here!”

“Because we’re underground!” snapped Sam.

“I’m not an idiot. It was a rhetorical question.”

They had been trying to get out for a couple of hours now—ever since they realized they were locked in to begin with. That realization didn’t come until after an hour or so of prodding through the archives… which made them both feel even more idiotic.

White gloves on hands, they found one old census that referenced the printer, which both of them deemed essentially useless, but Jenny took a photo of it on her phone anyway. And they found another old book with the Aquarian star symbol on the spine. It was in Dutch, but there were enough hand-written notes in English in the margins to make it worth their time. Jenny pocketed it. The joy at finding it had long-since dissipated.

Sam pounded on the door again for good measure, bellowing: “Let us out!”

Jenny had given up on the door a while ago. She had tried looking around the room for another exit strategy, but found none. No windows, no other door. Not even a ventilation hatch or a wall that seemed thin enough to break through.

Just as Sam was about to pound on the door again, a voice came from the other side. “Sam?”

He knew that voice. “Charlie?”

“Sam!” she cried and the lock clicked. The door edged open and Charlie was beaming at him from the other side of the threshold.

“Oh my god, Charlie!” Sam hugged her so tightly, she lifted from the ground, “I’m so glad to see you! How—what are you doing here?!”

“Dean called me when you didn’t check in. He said you were here—”

“Dean called you from Wyoming?”

“From _Wyoming_ ,” Charlie nodded, “Yes.”

She looked to Jenny and asked, “Who is this, Sam?”

“Oh,” smiled Sam proudly, “This is Jenny.”

“Jenny Mills,” Jenny shook Charlie’s eagerly offered hand.

“Pleased to meet ya!” beamed Charlie, as she placed her hand back on the door, “ _Jenny Mills_.”

“So,” Sam stepped forward, “Let’s get out of here.”

Suddenly, before they could react, Charlie whipped a small pistol from the back of her waistband and waved it at the two of them. “Get back in there!”

“What?” Sam demanded, “Charlie? Wait, who are you really?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Not!Charlie simpered, “But thanks for the name, Jenny Mills! And the handshake!”

At that, the door swung shut again, and before either of them could reach for it, it bolted shut.

“Damn it!” Sam hollered.

“Well,” added Jenny, folding her arms, “I think now we know who it was your brother talked to on the phone.”


	26. Chapter 26

  _June Seventeenth: one month ago_

 

As Ichabod Crane stepped into the portal alongside Don, he felt the air change. There was no wind, no sound. It was as if the portal existed outside of everything he possibly knew. A wavering veil of something that must have been smoke—but could not possibly have been smoke—separated him from the forest in which he had just stood.

He knew he should not glance back. But just one more look at Abigail was all he wanted for now or for ever. Selfish it seemed, or even punishing, but he needed to see her, or whatever last glimpse of her that he could manage.

As he turned, waiting to see her silhouette amongst the trees, the portal closed around them, the air heavy against his chair, choking the air from his lungs. He expected to die.

The heavy air gave way to blackness and he recalled nothing else for what seemed like a long time. 

The blackness eclipsed his mind as well as his body. He felt nothing, saw nothing. It could have been a moment or millennia.

He saw  _nothing_. Until he saw the ground rushing up at him.

He felt  _nothing_. Until he felt an intense fear of the ground he was about to hit.

He landed, face down in a field. He thought he must have fallen from a great height, but he felt no pain. As Crane pushed himself to his feet, he squinted, blinded by the brightness of the sun, low in the sky. It must have been a few hours they were gone, he thought. It was late afternoon last he remembered. Now it looked near sunset.

The air felt normal again. He could smell the mustiness of the dirt around him and then, floating on the breeze, the smell of fresh-cut grass. A gasoline engine roared somewhere nearby. He thought he heard birds in the distance.

And then a loud coughing, choking noise startled him. Whirling around, Crane saw Don pushing himself up onto his knees. The man tried to wipe dust from his face, but only succeeded in smearing it around. “That went  _terribly_ ,” he muttered.

“Where are we?” asked Crane. Perhaps this strange place—that looked like nothing more than an ordinary farm — _was_  his heaven. Perhaps there was more to his own perfect happiness than he had ever considered. But he found it hard to imagine Abbie feeling at home here. And he certainly could not imagine his heaven without her.

“Something’s gone wrong,” muttered Don. As he staggered up, brushing the dirt off the knees of his jeans, “Something went wrong with the spell.”

“How?”

Don looked far more frazzled than Crane could fathom. The steadiness he had always seemed to inhibit, even when faced with death himself, was gone. The man looked young, Crane thought, but was far older than that. He was older than nearly anything in existence.

“There was…” Don trailed off, “How do I describe it…?  _Interference_  of some kind.”

Crane raised an eyebrow as he pulled a twig out of his hair. “Can you please be clearer in your meaning when you say  _interference_?”

“Yes,” he muttered, “Some kind of magic I was not expecting, it got in the way. It…  _interfered_.”

* * *

The farm was near a highway. As they staggered to the edge , a green sign pointed them down the road, reading in tall letters:  _Chicago — 56 miles_.

“Chicago?!” cried Don, “Oh, isn’t that just great? You aim for—” he caught himself, “— _heaven_ , and get  _Chicago_.”

After hours of walking alongside the highway, a town loomed in the distance. Cars and trucks passed them on the road. And Crane noticed that the sun was actually rising in the sky, not sinking as he had expected.

How long had they been gone?  How long had Abbie been without him? Once the thought of her came to him, it was hard to banish again.

“What is the point of this, I ask?” Crane said, trying to distract himself.

“Don’t make me give you the spiel all over again,” Don retorted.

“I mean this,” Crane flailed his hands at the road, “The incessant walking. If I am meant to die, then let me die. Let’s hurry this up, shall we?”

Don stopped, a smirk blossoming on his face, “And just how do you propose to die? You wanna just jump in front of the next big rig that passes? That’ll give the driver something to haunt him for the rest of his life, won’t it?”

The idea came quickly to Crane, and he said it before even thinking it through, “Strangle me.”

“I’m not going to  _strangle_  you!” Don scoffed, “Forget it.”

“Yes, right,” Crane looked down, “A silly suggestion. But an old standby. Perhaps the oldest known form of murder one could imagine. Unless you bludgeoned me with a rock, I suppose.”

“Please stop talking,” muttered Don, “It’s not as simple as you needing to die. There was a certain place you needed to do it. That’s what the portal was for.”

“Pardon me?” Crane stopped in his tracks, “You told us that the portal was taking me to heaven.”

“It was not a  _direct_  stairway to heaven,” admitted Don, “But more of a layover. You see, you couldn’t just  _die_ , Ichabod. Not here and not  _now_. There’s a place where we could fix the problem you created in  _time._ We need to do that before you die. There’s a spell we could cast. There’s a certain type of magic—”

“My patience has been sorely tested,” snapped Crane, “I was led to believe that angels were powerful beings. As far as I have seen you’ve not used any power of your own, but rather required others to perform this  _magic_  for you. You don’t even have  _wings_.”

“What are you accusing me of?”

“One would think that was apparent,” he rolled his eyes, “Of uttering falsehoods. I believe you to be no angel.”

Don laughed, “I put a bullet in my head to prove it to you. What more do you want?”

As Crane studied the man, he thought again of Abbie. He would do it; he would turn towards Sleepy Hollow and not look back. “I am leaving.”

But as he turned, the demon stood there waiting for him.

“Hello, boys.”

Irate, Don spun around, “What happened?! What went wrong with your spell?!”

Crowley gave him a sneer. “I think the better question is: where have you been all this time?”

“What do you mean?” Don’s face fell.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been on the side of a highway in Illinois for two weeks.”

“Two weeks?” Crane gasped, “We have been gone for a  _fortnight_?”

“Yes,” Crowley muttered sarcastically, “I’ve been worried sick.”

Don looked at him wildly, “How did you find us now?”

“I’ve had my feelers out,” answered Crowley, “Me  _and_ every witch you’ve been dealing with. The whole Grand Coven knows you never showed up in Kansas and they think you’ve tricked them somehow. They think you’ve been lying to them. That’s why I can’t stay long with you right now. They might start growing suspicious of me too, and I can’t be dealing with that on top of everything else. I’ve suffered a very precarious relationship with the Grand Coven and the last thing I’m going to need when you’ve sorted this mess out is to be on their bad side.”

As Crane looked on in confusion, Crowley pulled two books out of jacket pocket and handed them to Don, “Just in case.”

“This is why you’ve been tracking us down?”

Crowley looked at his watch. “I don’t have long. You’ve got to keep moving, you understand?” Crowley snapped his fingers and a car appeared behind him on the shoulder of the road: a Prius. Crowley tossed Don the keys. “Got to think about the environment these days. Now, this is what you need to do. You track down all the ingredients you need and the moment you’ve got them, you give me a call. I’ll get you back to Kansas and then we’re golden.”

With a grin, he was gone.

Immediately, Crane turned to Don. “What does he speak of? The Grand Coven? You’ve been working with  _witches_?” He could feel the blood running hot in his cheeks. “Witches?! Do you not know anything about the treachery of witches?!”

“To be fair, ‘the treachery of  _evil_ witches.’ Many of them are quite nice,” Don twirled the keys on his finger idly. “Look, it was a necessary lie! The witches  _want_  heaven to break open. I’ve had to lie to them to make them think I was on their side. It was the only way to keep them complacent while we finished our task.”

Don held up the books in his other hand, “We need to find these ingredients, Ichabod. And I need you with me. It’s the only way.”

* * *

For Ichabod Crane, the next week became a blur: a crash-course in what he learned was called  _hunting_. He thought of Abbie often as he and Don sought that list that plagued the older of the two books Crowley had given them. The book was written in Dutch, which only Don could read.

As he translated the ingredients, dictating them for Crane to make his own list, Crane knew that each ingredient would spell another adventure, another brush with death, and yet another day he wished with his whole heart that Abbie were alongside him. The two of them made a far better team than any partnership he could imagine with anyone else, least of all Don.

But they managed it well enough. Don’s inability to die proved useful as they crashed a vampire nest, finding the one list item:  _the blood of a freshly turned vampire._ And again when they sought the next item:  _the shed skin of a shapeshifter_. And yet again to gather  _silver that has pierced the heart of a werewolf._ And again several times more over the next week as they completed the list from the old book.

As Crane was cleaning off wraith blood from a machete, he shuddered to think how easily he’d taken on the idea of even wielding a machete in the first place. What would Abbie think to see him swing it about so naturally? As if it weren’t so absurd an idea?

Sliding the machete back the sheath attached to his hip, he picked up the spike he’d cut from wraith’s wrist and dropped it beside Don, who was perched on the open hatch of the Prius, cleaning wraith blood from his boots.

“There,” announced Crane sternly, “That is the last ingredient. Let us summon this Crowley and end this at last.”

With a fierce grin, Don shook his head. “Nope. Sorry, no can do. We’re done one list.” He opened his jacket and took out the second book from an inner pocket, the boy scout guide, it looked like. “Now we’ve got the other.”

“The other?”

“You didn’t think whoever wrote this spell would put all their eggs in one basket, did you?”

Crane glared at him in horror. Would all of this have to be lived over again?

“Relax,” chuckled Don, getting some odd pleasure out of Crane’s sudden fright, “It’s not like this one. In fact, all but one item we can get easily. It’ll be like grocery shopping.” He stood up and slammed the trunk shut, “Come on. We should get a move on.”

Crane pursed his lips in irritation, “Did you not just say it shall be easy?”

“I said all but one. That last one is gonna be a doozy.”

* * *

For days, they followed up on lead after lead, the Prius making its way back and forth across the country. The feeling that the Grand Coven could appear around any corner was never very far from Ichabod Crane’s mind.

But each lead proved fruitless. And with each dead-end search, Ichabod felt his faith in Don’s mission slipping. With each town they left empty-handed, he considered turning back towards Sleepy Hollow, let the whole thing be damned. The only thing that kept him from doing so was the possibility that the witches would follow him. And the last thing he would want is to bring danger to Abbie.

The week’s end found them in Laramie, Wyoming, following a story Don heard from an antiques dealer about a top-secret auction that had taken place several years previous. With nothing else to go on, they found the warehouse.

Quietly, they made their way through the darkened corridors. With a nod from Don, they silently split into different directions. It took several twisting turns through the dank warehouse before Crane saw something there, in the middle of the floor. It had a long handle sticking out from what looked like an awkwardly shaped stone.

It was a hammer.

Struck by a strange sense of curiosity, Crane walked over to the hammer and slipped his hand over the handle. Pulling up on it gently, it lifted up, far lighter than he would have expected it to be.

Then, he heard footsteps.

Just as he was about to call out to Don, he realized that there were more than one set of feet. Quickly, he skulked away into the shadows, the hammer gripped tight in his hand, and waiting to see who this was that had followed him in.

He expected a pair of witches.

A man’s voice broke in: “I don’t think it’s like the comic books, sister. I mean, how the hell else did anyone get it to the auction?”

Ichabod held his breath. The  _auction_. They had come here looking for the exact same thing as him.

The two figures drifted into view, framed in a distant doorway. One was tall—the man who had spoken—while the other was small—a woman. She was only a silhouette from here, but something about the way she moved, even at this distance, was so familiar.

Crane’s heart leapt. Could it really be her? After all these shapeshifters and witches and demons, it seemed too good to be true. Was she just a mirage, summoned to trap him?

She spoke as the man drifted out of sight down the hallway:  “So anyone could have picked it up since then, you’re telling me?”

He began to race towards the doorway, but she had already passed out of sight.

“Yeah, I guess,” Crane heard the man mutter, “But what else have we got to go on?” Crane skidded out through the doorway as the man added: “I mean it would be nice if someone just walked right up with it in their hands, but—”

“Do you mean just like this?”


	27. Chapter 27

“Well, this is just superb,” muttered Jenny, perched cross-legged atop a wide filing cabinet. Several hours had passed leaving her only moments away from smacking Sam. “Honestly. The most genius thing I’ve ever seen. Did they teach you that in law school?”

He had fashioned from the table a far more elaborate battering ram then the chair had ever been. Propped on its side onto of some over turned chairs, Sam gave the thing a shove. It tumbled down off the chairs, sending most of its brute force into the locked door.

The table crashed to the floor. The door remained unmoved.

“I’m just gonna slow clap that one out,” Jenny smiled.

Sam glared, “Do you have a better idea?”

“She’ll be back,” said Jenny simply, “Of course she will. But this time we know. We’ll get the jump on her. Just be patient. What would happen if we  _did_  break down the door?  You don’t think she’d hear the crash and be ready and waiting for us?”

As Sam opened his mouth to retort, the air in the archives wavered slightly and Crowley appeared, grinning wryly. “You should listen to your girlfriend, Moose.”

“I’m not his girlfriend,” Jenny replied quickly and Sam looked to her awkwardly. “What?” she shrugged, “We haven’t had  _the talk_.”

Crowley turned his grin over to her. “My, my,  _Jenny Mills_ , is it?”

“What’s it to you?” Jenny climbed down.

“I needed a name to put to the face I saw in the woods. I needed to make sure you were who I suspected you were.”

“Which is who?”

Crowley smirked, “The sister of the  _witness_. You’re just her muscle, is that it?”

“What do you want with my sister?”

He waved his hand dismissively at Sam. “You and her are just as bad as these two! I couldn’t have any of you messing everything up for me! Do you know how much work I put into this?!”

Sam’s nostrils flared. “Into _what_ , Crowley?”

“Damn it, Moose!” he snapped, “I said ‘Poughkeepsie’ and everything!”

“Just what is going on, Crowley?”

“Listen to me. This is a far more sophisticated scheme than you and your Neanderthal brother are capable of understanding and I could not let the two of you get your sticky little kid fingers all over everything.”

Jenny folded her arms. “We know about the spell.”

“Good,” he mocked, “Then you know to keep your nose out. We just have to let this play out.”

“And leave a ton of witches running things?”

“The witches were _always_ there,” he retorted, “But now will would be no demons or angels either!”

“But you’re a demon,” scoffed Sam.

“I’m the King of Hell, kid,” he laughed, “I’ll still be King when all this is done. All those former demons, they want desperately to be human again. You don’t think they’ll look at me like their own personal lord and saviour? This is everything I could have ever wanted. I had done my best to keep you four from meddling! Wouldn’t life be a far grander thing if you just got to go back to killing vampires, exorcising ghosts, and the like? Don’t you miss the simplicity?”

“So that shapeshifter outside,” Jenny cut in, “She’s with you?”

“She’s on my payroll, yes. I needed someone in her line of work to help get you four out of the way. I had been hoping you’d fall for my little ploy with the bunker. I had a spell rigged to trap you in there the moment you all came inside, but it had worn off by the time you finally got there.” He gave Jenny a coy smile, “You and your sister are much smarter than these two.”

“The other hunters Dean talked to—“ Sam started, “Well,  _didn’t_ talk to, that was the shapeshifter?”

“Cunning detective work, Samantha.”

“But their cars were there!”

“A simple illusion spell.”

“Those exist?”

“General rule of thumb,” Crowley rolled his eyes, “If Harry Potter could do it, so can we.”

Jenny had taken to pacing about the archives, turning this over in her head. “So, you’re telling me we just let this play out? That’s gotta be too easy. There’s got to be some consequence we’re not thinking of.”

“I’ve worked this all out, Miss Mills. It’s a perfect spell. A perfect solution.”

“Nothing’s that perfect,” she laughed coldly, “What about Ichabod Crane: the man who needs to die in order for that spell to be cast?”

“What? Him? I wouldn’t worry about him. One man’s life is hardly that high a cost for such a benefit to all of humankind. Besides, he should have died two hundred years ago.”

“But what about Cas?” tried Sam, “Cas is stuck somehow, in some kind of… portal _thing_.”

“ _Portal thing_?” Crowley frowned, “Always so eloquent, Samantha. But, yes, that does explain a few things.”

“He was in the bunker when it happened.”

“The bunker?  _Your_  bunker? Ah,” Crowley laughed, “Well, poor little flightless bird. I wouldn’t worry though. I’m sure the moment the spell is cast and he is turned human, he will drop right out of that  _portal thing_  you so expertly describe.”

“But what if he doesn’t? What if it kills him?”

Crowley scoffed. “Do you really think I care about the angel? You only care because you know him. If Castiel or Ichabod Crane were two random people somewhere in the world who you didn’t know, don’t you think you’d let this spell play out? This is the best deal any of us are ever going to get. This  _is_  simple. And both of you know it is.”

“You know he’s right,” Jenny said to Sam in an undertone.

“Yeah,” Sam replied and he and Jenny shared a look, “I do.”

“But unfortunately, Crowley,” Jenny looked back to the King of Hell, “It’s the two of us you’ve got locked up, and not Abbie and Dean. Because I’m pretty sure the two of them would look at this a little differently.”


	28. Chapter 28

“Jenny’s still not picking up,” Dean tossed Abbie her phone and slid into the booth. He was pleased to see that his cheese fries had arrived while he'd been gone. Grinning widely, he dug in.

Ichabod shuddered. “What a travesty of the highest culinary consequence.”

Abbie ignored this as she slid her phone back into her pocket. “They must still be in the archives. Probably get no signal in there.”

With a cheek full of cheese, Dean murmured, “O, wadd uls ee oo uhoot dis On?”

Ichabod grimaced. “If these plastic-coated seats were not so hard to get in and out of, I would get down on my knees so I could beg your pardon.”

“He said _So, what else do we know about this Don?_ ” Abbie translated.

Dean gave an eager thumbs up, chewing wildly.

“You have something right… there…” Ichabod pointed to the string of cheddar hanging from Dean’s lower lip.

“It’s a good question,” Abbie pressed on as Dean wiped it away with the back of his hand, “Where is he now? When is he going to start getting worried that you’re gone?”

“We were to _rendez vous_ back at the hotel after dark,” answered Ichabod.

“And what’s he gonna do when you don’t show up?”

“But I have all intentions of showing up,” he replied matter-of-factly, “Why on Earth would I not?”

Abbie gave a laugh, “Please tell me you’re joking, Crane! You can’t go through with this.”

“Of course I can, Lieutenant. Why would I not? How can one fathom the outcome of such a spell and not decide to go through with it?”

“Because you will have to die!”

“A worthy sacrifice, do you not think? Especially considering the gains to humanity.”

“But you can’t trust this guy! Please tell me you don’t. If this was such a _worthy sacrifice_ , why would he have lied to us?” Abbie looked over to Dean, who was washing down the cheese fries with a mouthful of chocolate milkshake. “Come on, Dean, back me up.”

After rushing to swallow the milkshake, Dean clutched at his temples, crying out: “Oh god!”

Ichabod smiled. “Did you give yourself a brain freeze?”

Abbie was still not amused.

Groaning, Dean slammed his hand on the table repeatedly, garnering a roll of the eyes from Ichabod and more than a few raised eyebrows from nearby fellow diner patrons. “Ugh!” he finally spoke, “Ugh, yes! Yes, I agree with her. We’re not meeting up with this Don dude until we know more about what is going on.”

“Then what would you suggest we do, Mr. Winchester?”

Tittering slightly at the formality, Dean answered, “We go back to the Men of Letters bunker.”

“I have already made clear to you: Don is well acquainted with the Men of Letters. He shall know about your bunker.”

“I didn’t say we had to stay, but I’m not abandoning the place, not when it’s the last place I can go where I can still see Cas.”

“What’s cass?” frowned Ichabod.

“ _He_ …” replied Dean, “Is my _you_.”

“I see.”

Dean and Abbie shared a look. Shoving another fistful of cheese fries into his mouth, Dean started to explain the story of Castiel, from the first time he appeared, wings spread, right up until he got caught in the portal. Abbie translated where necessary.

“Ah,” drawled Ichabod, “I see now. This angel of yours, Mr. Winchester, must be what caused the spell to go wrong.”

“Ut ow oood ee oo at?”

Abbie translated, “ _But how could he—_ ”

“Thank you, my love, but I reckon I am coming to understand this absurd dialect of his,” he squeezed her hand before turning back to Dean, “Since Don acknowledged that the spell was not intended to take me to Heaven, as originally proposed, but rather to take me elsewhere first, perhaps this meant that the portal was meant to take us inside the Men of Letters bunker itself. Perhaps your angel just happened to be standing in the spot it was meant to open to and that caused it to malfunction?”

Dean swallowed, “So you’re telling me that this Don dude was trying to get inside our bunker? Why would he need to be inside our bunker?” He turned to Abbie, “You think he’s the one that set up the trap and all that?”

She shrugged, “It’s probable.”

“We gotta get a hold of Sam and Jenny. They gotta know.”

“And I bet anything this printer in Brooklyn they’re looking for has something to do with Don. If Don is immortal or something—as you said, Crane, he put a bullet in his head and nothing happened—then he might know the printer.”

“Or,” Dean grinned, grabbing another fistful of cheese fries, “he could _be_ the printer.”


	29. Chapter 29

Jenny walked up to Crowley. Folding her arms over her chest, she fixed her glare firmly upon him. “Do you honestly think locking us up in here is your best way to keep my sister from stopping you?”

“Yeah!” added Sam, somewhat absurdly.

“Thanks for the punctuation, Moose,” muttered Crowley, “But it’s not just those two I’m trying to keep you away from. The whole Grand Coven’s been flitting about these Lower Forty-Eight trying to find your sister’s colonial Ken doll. They’ve got Sleepy Hollow tied up, and they’re all over Kansas. The only thing that’s kept them off you so far is the fact that you’ve all been blissfully ignorant of all these goings-on. Now, I suggest you keep yourselves out of it. I’d let you go on a holiday if I believed you’d keep to your word, but I know you wouldn’t. You’d both go running right to the new dynamic duo and there’d be nothing I could do to stop you all. They’d know I was part of it, and goodbye post-demon kingdom.”

“So it was _witches_ you were with in Sleepy Hollow?” Jenny snapped, “That’s who Castiel saw you with?”

“Appearances must be kept up,” he answered, “Every witch in the western world knows about you four and they would all prefer you dead. Especially if there were no angels or demons, either? Can you imagine the unchecked power they’d have? I had to keep you out of the way. I might still be King when this is said and done, but I _am_ going to need allies. And you four are the devils I know. Why else do you think I gave your sister that map, sending her off after the half-witted Winchesters? You were supposed to be trapped in that bunker with them.”

“You’ve got to let us out of here, Crowley,” retorted Sam, “How good an ally could we be if you kept us prisoner?”

“Think of is as a _controlled demolition_ ,” Jenny offered, “This whole thing’s coming down either way, but at least this way you’ve still got some power. Otherwise, there’s no predicting what our siblings are gonna do.”

Crowley stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. “Fine.” Sam could see was visibly agitated; this mere fact alone was distressing.

* * *

“This is quite a remarkable vehicle!” Ichabod exclaimed from the backseat. Abbie smiled to herself and Dean beamed. Baby gave a roar and Ichabod jumped slightly. “Oh my.”

The Impala skittered out onto the highway. Abbie looked back with a laugh, as Ichabod swung sideways with the force. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to his driving.”

Ichabod gave her a hesitant look but said nothing. As she turned back to face out the front window, he slunk back into the seat. It was difficult to watch her smile. He well remembered the last look she gave him before he walked off into the portal. She had tried to be strong for him, but he knew it was a mask. There was no way he could do that again, he thought, even though he knew he must.

* * *

As they stepped back out into the overcast night of Brooklyn, Crowley waved a hand to dismiss the shapeshifter. With a scowl, she slunk away. He called out an insincere, “I’ll call you,” as she disappeared into the night.

“Right,” he muttered, “You will call to let me know you’ve arrived safely.”

“Ha ha,” sneered Sam.

“I’m completely serious,” he replied, “And you know to avoid Sleepy Hollow. But, it might be best if you just pretend nothing’s wrong. If you start darting about, looking over your shoulder, the witches will know you’re onto them.”

As he turned away from them, Sam caught him by the elbow. “Stop. Enough with the witches. I wanna know who this Don guy is.”

Crowley winced, “Well….”

“I know you know.”

“He’s powerful, that’s all you needed to know.”

“Powerful, eh? Then why does he need you to cast his spells for him?”

“Perhaps he hasn’t got the same delicate touch I myself possess?”

“Performing a spell is like cooking,” Sam rolled his eyes, “Anyone can follow a recipe.”

“But _not everyone_ is Julia Child.”

“How powerful can he be then?

Crowley muttered a blasphemous curse and sneered at Sam, “Just think of him as bloody cursed then, if that helps your fragile mind fathom it. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going back to do damage control with the coven, and you are going to ring me when you get to Kansas.”

"Not until you tell me more about this Don guy."


	30. Chapter 30

As the Impala raced across the highway, Ichabod elaborated upon what he knew of the so-called angel, Don.

“He only ever answered to Don…”

* * *

“It is short for Donatello,” explained Crowley, “I think he just really liked the ninja turtle.”

“Is that a joke?” sneered Jenny.

“Well, it’s certainly not because of the Renaissance painter.”

* * *

“He accent was always hard to place,” continued Ichabod, “And he never explained his history. I imagine him to be from somewhere in England, but which county, I haven’t the slightest idea. A certain inflection in his words at times indicated Irish, but at others, more American. Perhaps he simply watched too much television.”

“Oh yeah,” Dean muttered sarcastically, “All those Irish soap operas.”

* * *

 The sky was growing darker in Brooklyn; the streetlights had sprung on.

“How long have you known him?” Jenny asked Crowley.

“Centuries.”

“So what name did he use before _Donatello_?”

“It was only Donatello.”

“I hate to break it to you, but the ninja turtles aren’t exactly an ancient myth or anything.”

Crowley smirked. His hands swung inside his pockets, making his black coat swoon. “Don’s been around the block a few times.”

* * *

“Did he give you any other clues?” asked Abbie, “Like what powers he had or something? Because Dean's... _me_ , he can do a hell of a lot.”

“He did not possess any extraordinary abilities that I witnessed… beyond the one.”

Dean drummed his hands on the steering wheel. “And that was?”

“He could not die of course.”

“And you were, what? Just taking his word for it?”

Ichabod gave a snort. “I watched him put a pistol to his head and pull the trigger.”

Abbie gave Dean a nod. “I saw it myself.”

Shrugging, Dean replied, “He’s probably got some powers he’s been hiding from you.”

“Then why did he need Crowley to perform a spell for him?”

* * *

“Look, Moose,” Crowley was getting sick of this, “He’s not someone I’d like to be on the bad side of. We go way back, if you will. I give you too many details and he’ll know it came from me. He hasn’t got many friends.” He stepped backwards along the sidewalk. “Now, if you please, I’d like to get back to the witchy soiree. Don't forget: call me when you get to Kansas.”

* * *

“Could he be cursed?” offered Dean.

Abbie considered it, “Or had a spell cast on him?”

From the back seat, Ichabod cleared his throat. Smiling to herself, Abbie turned back to face him. “Getting lonely back there, _honey_?”

“These ridiculous modern endearments. Honey is sticky and messy.”

Abbie smirked, "A little like love?" Ichabod couldn't help but crack a small smile. "Honey lasts forever too. Did you know they found some honey in a jar in some Egyptian tomb or something and it was still okay to eat?"

Dean thought of Castiel's forgotten obsession with the bees and the Ziploc bag of honey he handed over, so wide-eyed. He supposed that was the closest thing to a Valentine he was likely to get from him. 

"Which poor research assistant was made to prove that fact?" Ichabod muttered. 

“Dying again made him cranky,” cut in Dean.

“I did not _die_ _again_ , thank you very much, Mr. Winchester,” he pouted, “I was... _hunting_ , as you call it. Now, I strongly suspect that Don once had great power. He certainly has the arrogance to suggest such.”

Dean grinned into the rear view mirror. “Well, I guess you’d know, eh, _honey_?”

“My thought,” Ichabod continued, ignoring him, “Is that he had power stripped from him, possibly from some higher authority.”

“Higher authority?” repeated Abbie, “You mean, like… _God_?”

Dean shook his head, “God’s long gone, sister.”

* * *

 As Crowley disappeared, Jenny looked to Sam. “I gotta call Abbie.”

“Yeah,” answered Sam, staring off into the deepening night sky, “Let’s get outta here.”

* * *

 Just as Ichabod was folding his arms in a huff, Abbie felt a buzzing in her pocket. “That’s probably them.”

As she scrambled to answer the phone, Ichabod muttered, “Thank _someone_ for that.”

“Jenny?”

* * *

 “Hey,” Jenny smiled to hear her sister’s voice.

“Where have you guys been?!”

“In the archives,” Jenny gave Sam roll of the eyes. He slipped his hand into hers and they carried towards their hotel.

“That was a long time. Did you find anything?”

“About the printer?" she sighed, "No.”

She could hear Abbie hesitate as she analyzed her sister’s sigh. “Jenny. What happened? You tell me right now.”

Jenny gave an awkward laugh, “Crowley.”

As Abbie snapped, “What?” she heard Dean in the background mutter, “ _What the hell happened?_ ”

“It’s okay, Ab, look, we’re fine. We’re heading back to Kansas right now.”

“So are we.”

“Well?” Jenny gave Sam another anticipatory smile, “Did you guys find anything?”

“We did,” she could practically hear her sister grinning, “We found him, Jen. We found Crane.”

In the background, she heard Dean laughing as Ichabod added, “ _Tell your Miss Mills ‘greetings from me!_ ’”

With a giggle, Abbie returned to the phone, “Did you hear that?”

“I did,” she said with forced lightness; perhaps Abbie was too distracted to realize. Her eyes held Sam’s and her fake smile dropped. “I did hear that.”

“So we’ll see you back in the bunker,” Abbie added brightly, “And bring beers! We’ve got to celebrate.”

“Will do.” As Jenny hung up, she stuffed her phone back into her pocket and gave Sam a grave look. “This is not going to be easy.”


	31. Chapter 31

Sam and Jenny set off immediately, driving through the night. As the morning opened up before them, Sam was still snoozing in the passenger seat while Jenny kept her eyes fixed on the road. Kansas was still miles away but she was desperate to get there.

All she could think about what what she was going to say to Abbie when she saw her.

It was odd, being both desperate to get somewhere and also dreading the arrival.

As she pulled into a gas station in Indiana, Sam woke up. “Are we here?” he mumbled.

“No,” she replied through the open window, “Several hours left to go.”

“Want me to drive?” He rubbed his eyes and yawned.

Jenny gave a laugh, “I’m good. You keep sleeping.”

But Sam opened door. “I’m gonna get us some coffee. What do you say?”

“I take it with two creams and a four-pack of Red Bull.”

* * *

As they pulled out of the gas station, Sam barely managing to get the plastic lid on his coffee open without burning his hands, Jenny said, “We should invest in travel mugs.”

“We should?”

“Yeah,” she sipped carefully at the hot coffee, “It’s starting to seem like a hunter necessity, isn’t it?”

“I get that,” he looked at her gently, “I just meant _we_ should?”

“Yeah,” she repeated, her eyes flitted quickly over to him. “ _We_ should.”

“I thought we hadn’t had _the talk_ yet.”

“If you think we need to talk, then let’s talk.”

“Well,” he retorted, “Based what you said to Crowley, _should_ we talk?”

She grimaced, “You’re going to worry about what I said to _Crowley_? Sam, come on.”

He threw his hand up in the air. “Well, I don’t know!”

“Sam, relax. We don’t need to have _the talk._ ”

As he watched her eyes remain steady on the road, he sighed, and looked back out the window, fairly certain there was both nothing decided and nothing left _to_ decide.

But then she added casually, “ _We_ really should invest in travel mugs, though. I mean it. Like some nice ones from Costco or something.”

* * *

The afternoon waned as Sam and Jenny were leaving Illinois. Sam had taken over the wheel and they had lapsed into a comfortable silence. As she set her head against the window, her hand rested lazily in his lap and she squeezed his thigh.

She didn’t have to say it, but Sam had an idea of what had been turning over in her mind the entire drive. He wanted to help; he wished he could take the burden off of her, but there was nothing he could offer; Abbie was her sister, not his. Were it Castiel who needed to die, he would know the responsibility of handling Dean would be his, not hers.

But he doubted that made it any easier.

“Did you want me to talk to Abbie?” he offered, knowing what she would say.

“No,” she predictably answered, “I’ve gotta do it.”

“It might be better coming from me.”

She pulled her hand away from his lap. “Do you honestly think that?”

“No,” he sighed, “But better she hate me than you, right?”

“Sam, I can’t force her to do anything. Hell, she can’t even force Ichabod to do anything. She’s gonna kick and scream and go down fighting but he’ll do it because he knows it’s the right thing to do. That’s why he made the decision he made way back when.”

“But if he did it once, maybe he can’t do it again?” he shrugged, “In my experience, having been through it before only makes it harder to go through it again.”

Jenny rubbed at her eyes. “All we can do is make our case, right? We can just stand side-by-side, a united front. I mean, isn’t that all we can ever do?”

* * *

As Crowley sat amongst the witches, tea cup poised in hand, he wondered if this is was what passed for a satanic soiree these days. Dolores had foregone the colour black for the occasion and Mildred even wore an elaborate hat like one might see at the race track.

The Grand Coven had certainly lost its teeth in recent years, he thought. Ever since all the nasty business with Rowena and Olivette. Not to mention Katrina's implosion.

And this, he thought, the same group of witches famously persecuted for allegedly holding orgies with the Devil! They had a lot to live up to and tea parties just weren’t cutting it.  

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he leapt up, glad that Moose had finally reached Kansas. He was so pleased for the distraction that he didn’t even look at the call display before he answered. “That was a quick jaunt cross-country—”

A thin and urgent voice cut in: “Where the hell have you been?”

“Donnie boy,” Crowley said suddenly, gesturing wildly at the witches to turn off the Barbra Streisand record that screeched in the background.

“Don’t give me that, Crowley,” snapped Don, “Where have you been?”

“I’ve been keeping this all from falling apart while you’ve been off chasing wild geese. Did you _catch them all_?”

“He’s gone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My ingredient. He’s gone.”

“Gone _how_?”

“He vanished with the bloody hammer of Thor!”

“Did you call the Avengers?”

“This isn’t funny. You know how long I’ve waited for him.”

“I know—”

“You _don’t_ know! Only _Death_ can understand how long I’ve waited for him!”

At that, Don hung up and Crowley gave the witches a simpering, apologetic smile.


	32. Chapter 32

Castiel turned towards the door as it opened, his anxiety spread clearly across his face. Sure enough, Dean appeared ahead of the others. He broke into a wide grin the moment he saw him. In a rush, his boots came scurrying down the stairs.

“You’re here,” he said, “God, I’m glad you’re here.”

Abbie and Ichabod filtered in behind him. At the sight of Castiel, Ichabod’s mouth fell open. “That’s him?  _That’s_  an angel? Why he  _does_  look like just an ordinary man! Perhaps Don was truthful all the while.”

"I wouldn't quite make that leap," muttered Dean. 

Castiel sized Crane up. “And this is the  _man out of time_?”

Abbie stepped forward. “Castiel, this is Ichabod Crane. Crane, this is Castiel… you don’t have a last name, do you?”

Cas tilted his head in confusion. “Why would I have a last name? I am the only Castiel I know of.”

Crane shrugged and tried to be friendly. “I do not know any other Ichabods either.”

The two of them studied each other, their eyes meeting levelly. Dean and Abbie shared a quick glance, but neither wanted to acknowledge what any of this meant.

* * *

As night fell, Ichabod and Abbie excused themselves while Dean sat in a chair pulled up as close to Castiel as he could. Any moment, Cas could fade away again, and Dean wanted to be here for as long as he could.

“It’s difficult seeing him,” Castiel admitted, “The man who I know has to die in order for me to get out of here.”

Dean’s eyes wrinkled, “Come on now. You don’t know that’s true.”

“I don’t see another way out.” Nearly every book in the bunker formed a scattered circle just outside of the spot. He’d been through every single one of them and not found a thing.  “ _Death_ or _stuck in here_. It seems an unfair trade, Dean.”

Dean sighed and pressed his face into his hands. The truth of Castiel’s statement was obvious, but he’d held it at bay for so long. It had been like so many other things over the years Dean had always known to be true but never wanted to admit.

“Cas,” he started, his voice breaking, “I… I gotta get you out of there.” He could feel his jaw trembling as he said. Even now, even to Cas of all people, some things were just so hard to say. “I have to touch, man. I can’t live thinking I’m never gonna get to touch you again.”

Cas sighed, “Dean….”

“Don’t, please, Cas. I know you just want to do what you think is right. I know that. I get that. But, come on, man, that’s all we ever do, isn’t it? We always do what’s right. Asking a guy to die… that’s… I don’t care what the outcome is… that’s… that’s  _not_  right. But I don’t care. I don’t care, Cas. I just want you back... with me… where I can touch you, h-hold you, whatever. I…” he took in a quivering breath, “I… I don’t care if you’re an angel or human, or  _anyway_. As long as you’re alive and with me. That’s all I care.”

Helpless, Castiel watched Dean as he struggled to keep from crying. “I understand how you feel, Dean,” he said softly, “But we can’t ask him to die. If it were reversed, what would you do if Abbie or Sam asked  _me_ to die?”

At last, Dean pulled his face up from his hands and looked to Castiel painfully. He blinked back tears. “I would tell them to go to hell.”

“Dean—”

His voice came more forcefully now. “I wasted  _how many_  years avoiding how I felt about you?! Now, I know that’s  _my_ fault, nobody else’s, but I’ll be damned if I let anyone keep you from me now.”

* * *

“This…  _memory foam_ , as you call it, is truly quite a remarkable substance,” Ichabod said with delight as he settled into the bed.

Abbie laughed as she laid her head on his chest and squeezed him tightly. There was no way she was going to let him go now.

As he wrapped his arm around her, Ichabod leaned forward and kissed her firmly on top of her head. “I have missed you terribly,” he whispered.

“I missed you too.” Inhaling, she realized how badly she missed such simple things as his smell. “Youv’e got to promise me that you will never do anything like that again.”

He bit his lip. “Anything like _what_?”

“Like _dying!_ Life was not fun while you were dead.”

“I’m not sure about that. I was dead for over two hundred years and the world seemed to pass along just nicely.”

“That’s not funny,” she squeezed him again, “Besides, I wasn’t here to miss you then.”

They lay together in silence for a while until Ichabod spoke again, his voice barely audible. “You know this is not over, right, Lieutenant?”

“Don’t,” she said urgently, pressing her face into him, “Don’t say that. I’ve been pretending so hard we were going to get a happily ever after.”


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a long time since I updated. Things are wrapping up, so hopefully I will be able to update without much more delay!

Dean leaned his head against the back of the wooden chair and stared up at Cas.

“At least make yourself comfortable,” Castiel tilted his head in sympathy.

“I am comfortable,” Dean lied. The chairs in the bunker were hard and ass-numbing, but he didn’t care. He was as close to the portal—as close to Castiel—as he could get without touching the barrier.

With a sigh, Castiel shrugged, his shoulders rising and falling beneath his trench coat. It was a heavy look of charmed resignation that he gave Dean, a look Dean knew well. That _oh you_ look.

“So,” Dean folded his hands behind his head, “when we get you out of there—”

“ _If_ you get me out of here.”

“ _When_ we get you out of there,” Dean repeated, “There’re no _ifs_.”

Castiel pressed his lips together. _Oh you_. “I’ll be human.”

Dean forced a smile. “Kinda like the frog prince, eh? Only it’s a crazy-ass witch’s spell. Not a kiss from a princess.”

“Would you be the princess in this scenario then? And I the amphibian? Genetically speaking, it’s you that has more in common with a frog than I do.”

Dean reddened. “Forget it. I don’t suppose you get fairy tales much in Heaven. Not even Disney movies.”

“We have stories,” Cas replied, “Some. Not as much as humans. Storytelling does seem very human trait. Although, as we know, certain angels have dabbled.”

Dean hadn’t thought of Metatron in months. And certainly not with regards to any of this. If he admitted it, it did give him a certain glee thinking that Metatron, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, would suddenly find himself human.

 _Bastard deserves it_ , he smirked.

Castiel narrowed his eyes. “What’s funny? Did I make a joke again?”

“No,” Dean shook his head, the smile fading, “I was just thinking of something. Never mind. But, come on. Tell me about these angel bedtime stories.”

“They’re nothing special. Mostly just cautionary tales and the like.”

Dean looked up to Castiel, whose eyes held his tightly. _There is so much time in those eyes_ , thought Dean. Thousands of years that Cas had lived that Dean could never even fathom. He felt so small beside him sometimes.

There were moments, lying in bed, waiting for sleep, when the thought would cross Dean’s mind that there, right beside him, asleep, was a creature who had witnessed the entirety of life on Earth.

And then it pained him to think of how much had happened to Castiel since then… and all because of him. He felt things now that no other angel felt. Did things that no other angel did.

Hell, he even _slept_.

It was a strange night the first time that happened. Castiel woke himself up with his own snores and leapt across the room in fright. Dean had to pull him back into bed, easing him gently inside the sheets. He held him closely, feeling his heart pounding in fear. That had been odd, too, Castiel’s heartbeat. Dean remembered how it slowed eventually as his eyes closed and the angel drifted back off to sleep.

“What cautionary tales?” asked Dean, “Like an angel falling in love with a human? Any of those?”

“Yes, Dean,” he answered quietly, “Many of those.”

Dean’s cheeks flushed again and he looked up to the ceiling as if that was how one kept the tears away. Helplessly, Castiel stood, arms limp at his sides. He knew when Dean needed him to say nothing and Dean loved him for it.

Something wavered in his throat that he couldn’t press back down. His eyes reached higher up the ceiling, focusing on the details of the millwork and trying not to think of everything else.

Moments passed and his breath drew ragged. He’d traced lines around the ceiling several times now and it wasn’t helping.

And then Cas broke in, ever-so-softly, “Dean…”

“Cas, I…” he shook his head quickly. The ceiling grew cloudy as his eyes filled with tears.

“Dean,” Cas repeated, more urgently, “Dean, I’m—”

Immediately, Dean looked to him, leaping to his feet.

Castiel was wavering out of focus. He flickered like a candle. His mouth made words, but the sounds were gone. And then he was too.

“Cas!” Dean shouted, “Cas!”

The tears came now, irrepressible.

“Goddamnit!” grunted Dean, pushing his balled-up fists against his eyes. Dropping back into the chair, he muttered a few more curse words and ran his hands through his hair.

“You will have him back soon enough,” a voice interrupted and Dean bolted upright.

Ichabod stepped out from the shadows. He had been standing at the edge of the room, where the corridor began.

Eyes red, Dean wiped quickly the last tear in his eyes. “It isn’t right,” he swallowed, clearing his throat, pulling himself back together. “Why do you have to make the sacrifice? Why does Abbie? You can’t just ask someone to die.”

“None of you are asking me,” he said solemnly as he approached. His fingers stretched and curled at his sides, held awkwardly but austerely. “This is a decision that I can prove quite capable of making for myself, thank you very much.”

“Yeah?” Dean reared on him, raising both an eyebrow and his voice, “And just what does Abbie have to say about it?”

“I would kindly ask that you speak softly. She still sleeps. If she remains the woman I know and love, I reckon she has slept little as of late. She deserves her rest.”

“You be honest with me now, _Ichabod_ ,” Dean retorted suddenly. The way he spoke as he raised a stern finger towards Crane reminded him suddenly and embarrassingly of his own father. He spoke so often like that these days. Perhaps he always had, he had just never realized it before. He dropped his hand, blushing. “You be honest,” Dean repeated, softer now, “Does she know what’s still gonna happen, or does she think you’re back for good?”

Crane sighed heavily, his eyes drifting off towards the ground. “She knows. I know to never deceive her, no matter the severity or… _difficulty_ of the truth. That is a promise she and I have made to each other. And I shall never break it. Never.”

With that last word, he looked up again. His eyes met Dean’s and held them, just long enough for trust… or at least just long enough to understand one another.

Dean had no idea what else to say. He stared at Crane, dumb-founded. He thought of Castiel, trapped, drifting like fog in the ether, sometimes here, sometimes not… never able to tell when he might appear, or when he might disappear again.

But that was the way Castiel had always been. The only difference, Dean thought, was that Castiel could always hear him, always sense his longing. He always answered Dean’s prayers. He knew for years how often Dean thought of him. He knew for years how Dean felt long before Dean could even admit it to himself.

And he waited, ever-so patiently for Dean to accept himself.

It was a debt, Dean knew. A debt he could never hope to repay. And now he couldn’t help but think of this as yet another injustice against the angel. How could Dean—how could anyone—take Castiel’s grace from him and look upon the act as a _good thing_. He remembered the smile Castiel had given him, and the proclamations he himself had made: _“_ _I don’t care if you’re an angel or human. As long as you’re alive and with me.”_

It wasn’t exactly true.

Dean knew how painful it was to be mortal. He knew what it was to die… over and over again. He reckoned no one in the history of humanity had ever died as many times as he had.

Once upon a time, Castiel had only ever known Heaven. Because of Dean, he knew Earth, and Purgatory too. Dean didn’t want him to fill up the whole bingo card.

He gave an absent-minded glance back to the empty space where Castiel had been… where he would be again. In there, Castiel could not hear Dean’s prayers. If he stepped out of that portal a human, he would never hear them again.

Dean wondered what had been the last thought of his Castiel had felt—the last ounce of _longing—_ before the spell took hold of him. If he had known it might have been the last time Castiel would have felt it, he would have done more. He would have prayed. He would have concentrated his thoughts. He would have daydreamed something dirty and then imagined Castiel half a continent away, blushing.

It was the angel he fell in love with and he was going to do whatever he could to get as much of him back as possible.

Dean balled his hands into fists. His chest rose and fell with a deep breath. Resolute, he looked to Crane. “There’s gotta be another way.”

Crane tutted and rolled his eyes. “Do you honestly not think the Lieutenant and I have no followed up every possible alternative?”

“It’s a damned spell!” snapped Dean, “You’re an _ingredient!_ There can’t be only one of you in the whole damned world!”

“Tell me, _hunter_ ,” Crane narrowed his eyes, “How many _men out of time_ have you encountered in your travels, pray tell?”

Dean scoffed, “What, like, _this year_?”

“So, that’s an affirmative?”

Dean’s mind staggered slightly. “Y-yeah. It is.”

“Then who? Who is a _man out of time_?”

“Henry Winchester,” a voice interrupted.

Dean gave a start, nearly thinking it was his own subconscious that answered.

But it was Abbie. She marched out the corridor, passing Crane, a grin on her face and a huge tome in her arms. With aplomb, she dropped the book onto the table, where it lay open to a list of Men of Letters members, with photographs and details of their lives.

“These are some of the personnel archives. We didn’t give them to Cas before, because we didn’t think they’d help, but damn. We should have.” As she brushed off her hands with satisfaction, she repeated, taking in the room of gobsmacked faces, “Henry Winchester. Your grandfather. He was a _man out of time_.”

“Yeah,” Dean replied, “But he’s dead. He was killed by a Knight of Hell.”

Crane turned to Abbie, brow furrowed, “I thought you were resting.”

“It’s cute you thought that,” she gave him a diplomatic smile, “But I can’t sleep until we got this sorted out.” As she leaned back over the book, “This spell of Don’s… it requires a man out of time to die, right? So what if he’s already dead? There might be something we can do.”

“Are you suggesting, my love,” Crane asked in a tone of bemused shock, “that we somehow resurrect a dead man only to sacrifice him again?”

“It would be cheating the spell. If we use Henry Winchester’s remains as the ingredient, it might be enough to get the spell started, but not necessarily finished. Meaning—”

A slow smile broke over Dean’s face. “We could get Cas out of the portal!”

Abbie shrugged, “It’s worth a try.”

“Damn right it is!” Dean beamed, “This the level of optimism I’m talking about. This is the out-of-the-box thinking that always pulls us through!”

Crane winced, “Have you thought about the practical realities of this plan?”

Dean shared a smirk with Abbie and shrugged, “If we need my zombie grandpa, then we need my zombie grandpa. Let’s get started.”


End file.
